Making money by coaching others to solve their problems is big business. Just do a Google search for “online coaching” and you’ll find 590,000 results. There are all kinds of coaches out there, online executive coaching, online life coach, health coach online and the list goes on. There are lots of people earning a good living online by selling their coaching services, me included (see 1on1 coaching).

Who is a coach?

A coach is someone who takes his/her knowledge, experience and expertise in a particular field and teaches others to be successful in their own fields. It is not necessary for your clients to be in the same field as you, for example a leadership coach can help business owners in a variety of industries to be successful in their respective businesses. Or you could be an expert in business-to-business (B2B) copywriting and coach general copywriters to become successful specialists in B2B copywriting.

There are even coaches for coaches. A more experienced coach can teach new coaches how to master their own coaching skills. They are like mentors who are always there for you to answer questions and guide you when you are at a loss. There is very good money to be made in doing just that.

What skills are required for becoming a successful online coach?

Probably the most important skill for a good coach, on or offline is the ability to truly listen. Surprised? You cannot help someone if you fail to listen to their problems and understand the kind of solutions they need. It is only with this clear understanding that you can tailor a coaching program that will help your students.

Keep in mind this is different from developing a training course on a particular topic that can benefit many. A good example would be a step-by-step video course on getting traffic. Here, you are using your expertise in online marketing to help others who all have a common problem.

Patience is a virtue that is probably a close second to listening. You are going to hear the same questions from your students over and over again. You may have heard it before but to them it is a new challenge. So you can’t dismiss their questions and make them feel stupid.

They have hired you to solve their problems, no matter how mundane it may be to you. One way to cut down on spending your time is to have a Frequently Asked Question (FAQs) section on your website. This can help answer many of the basic questions without taking up your valuable time.

Even online coaching requires good people skills. You have to learn to build a good rapport with your clients in order for them to trust you and your advice. Your credibility is the most valuable asset online since you may never meet your clients face-to-face.

Never try to fake your expertise. Yes, it is easy to hide behind the built-in anonymity that the Internet provides but if you are in the coaching business, people will see through you if you’ve never done what you are teaching. If you’ve never designed a website before, then being a web designing coach would not be a good idea.

What tools do you need?

For setting up an online coaching business, you will need the following tools:

• A reliable computer with broadband Internet connection
• An e-mail program and a subscription to an auto responder service
• A functional website with regularly updated content that establishes your expertise and pre-sells your coaching services
• An ability to accept online payments
• A dedicated telephone line without call waiting feature that can interrupt coaching calls
• Subscription to an online meeting service

That’s a good start and you can add more sophisticated options as your coaching business grows.

Marketing your coaching business

Plan your coaching business before getting into it. What do you know that you can teach? Do some research to make sure there is a market for your skills. Are people willing to pay money to learn?

Publish a few articles to get your name out there and demonstrate your knowledge. Have you published any books or white papers? These can really help in building your credibility. If not, can you create an eBook on your subject and give it away free? Let it go viral and spread the word about you and your expertise.

Your coaching website is your 24/7 salesperson. Make sure it is a true reflection of you and your coaching business and not some cheap template slapped together just to create an online presence. Publish any testimonials that you have from your past clients. Do you have case studies of students who are now earning a good living after being coached by you? Paid advertisement couldn’t hold a candle to that kind of an endorsement.

If you are just starting out and don’t have any existing clients, use testimonials from your ex-boss or business associates who have benefited from your knowledge and expertise.

Whatever you do, stay away from hyping how much money you’ve made from coaching others. Your prospects only care about what you can do for them and not how successful you’ve been selling your coaching services.

Market your coaching business to get clients to come to you. Show them the results they can expect to achieve by you coaching them. Listen carefully to their problems and provide insightful answers to reassure them that they can move forward towards their goals.

Coaches are well sought after online for those who have good knowledge and/or experience in a certain area. Use what you know about a topic and provide a coaching service to others to help them become an expert like you.

This is my second article on mini-sites and how to use them effectively in Internet marketing. You can read the first part at Creating DiY Mini-Sites – Spend a Little, Make a Lot!

Assuming you’ve got your mini-site ready and uploaded to your hosting server, it is now time to move onto Phase II. That’s where you’ll optimize your mini-site for your chosen niche to find your page, promote it using methods to attract qualified traffic and finally monetize it to make money.

Search engine optimization (SEO) for mini-sites

At first glance, it may seem like a difficult task to optimize a single web page. It is natural to assume that a website with hundreds of pages or an authority site would have a distinct advantage over a mini-site. After all, a large site can optimize for hundreds of keywords and phrases since it may have thousands of pages.

Sometimes being small can have its advantages. A mini-site targets a specific niche or product. That means it can target keywords/phrases that are very specific to that niche. You can optimize your mini-site for long-tail keywords that may be ignored by those gargantuan sites but are very important to your niche or product.

Matt Bailey, founder of SiteLogic, wrote on his blog, “Essentially, the long tail is the hundreds to thousands of keywords and key phrases that a site is found for, yet rarely noticed or exploited.” These keywords may not have an astronomical search volume, but they are subject to much less competition. That means that it’s easier to rank highly for them.

There is no surefire formula for a number one ranking, but there are techniques that will give you an edge over the competition. SEO is too a vast subject for me to provide you good information in one blog post. So let me direct you to a couple of previous posts that provide tips and pointers for do-it-yourself SEO.

• Create Optimized (SEO) Content for Readers and Spiders
• SEO Quick Tips
• What Color Hat Should I Wear?
• What Is Search Engine Optimization?

How to promote your mini-site for free

Large websites and big companies have the budgets to promote their sites and drive traffic. As a solopreneur, you have to compete with them by using your marketing ingenuity and flexibility.

Promoting a mini-site on a mini budget is not only feasible, you can actually do it very well without spending a penny. Now, I’m not going to lie here by promising instant hordes of traffic but you can get there soon enough.

You don’t have to spend obscene amounts of money to get the word out about your mini site. With some creativity, you can start getting traffic without spending a dime on advertising and your profit margins are going to be much higher. See I told you being small has its advantages!

Here are some free methods for promoting your mini-site:

• Do-it-yourself SEO: Yes, there’s a learning curve and strategies keep changing but with some practice, you can achieve good search engine rankings, especially for long-tail keywords. Start by reading some books on search engine optimization to grasp the basic concepts. Here are 3 books on search engine optimization from Amazon (NOTE: these are affiliate links):
  1. Search Engine Optimization: Your Visual Blueprint for Effective Internet Marketing
  2. The Truth About Search Engine Optimization
  3. Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))
• Article marketing: Submit articles to free reprint sites and article directories. The most popular one is EzineArticles.com. Include a link to your site in the resource box. The article must include the resource box whenever it is reprinted, so you’ll get links from anyone who uses your content. (See 3 Reasons Why Article Marketing Can Be Better Than Search Engine Optimization (SEO)). To learn more about marketing your online business with content, check out my eBook, “Content Marketing Roadmap” or sign up for my FREE special report, “Content Marketing Revealed.”
• Forum marketing: Join forums that appeal to members of your target market. Participate in discussions, and include a link to your site in your signature. (See Use Your John Hancock for Free Traffic.)
• Social Media marketing: Two valuable currencies that you can use in your online business are content and social marketing or networking. If you combine them, you get a powerful one-two punch for generating high quality sales leads. (see social media marketing)
• Blog commenting: Comment on blogs. Most will include a link to your site with your comment. This will help boost your search engine rankings and could result in click-through traffic. (P.S. Leave your comment after this post and you’ll get a link back to your site!)
• Guest blogging: Contact bloggers that reach your target market and ask to write a guest post for them. This is a great way to establish yourself as an expert and create interest in your site.
• Create a small report to give away: Write a small report, making sure to include a link to your site. Then contact others who sell information products and ask them if they would like to give it away as a bonus with their product. (see my Free Reports section)
• Use PR: Write a press release. Submit it to press release websites, online publications and bloggers. (see Writing Press Releases for Web 2.0)

Monetizing your mini-site

Mini-sites can be powerful moneymaking machines. A well-crafted mini site is focused on a specific niche. In order to monetize it, you must offer something that appeals to that niche. There are several ways to accomplish this.

1. Create your own info product

Creating an information product is one of the most lucrative ways to make money with a mini-site. A simple eBook can sell for $20 or more, and an eBook series or online course could net you hundreds of dollars. If you’re good at writing, this could be the perfect moneymaking opportunity for you.

But you don’t necessarily have to be an accomplished writer to sell your own info product. You could purchase some Private Label Rights (PLR) content, do a little rewriting and adding on, and sell it as something unique. If writing is not your thing, maybe you could put together an educational video series. (See Creating Your First eBook)

2. Buy the rights to someone else’s product (MRR)

For those who don’t have the time or the desire to create a new information product, this is a great way to start making money quickly. You can buy master resale rights (MRR) to reports and courses that others have written, sell them, and keep 100% of the profits. There are even packages available that include a sales page and graphics, so all you have to do is upload the files to your server and promote the site. For a one-time investment, you get unlimited moneymaking potential. Just Google MRR eBooks and you’ll find a ton of them.

3. Join an Affiliate Program

If you want to get started with a minimal investment of both time and money, joining an affiliate program is definitely the way to go. You simply promote other people’s products, and when a sale is made, you keep a percentage of the profits. Your only investments are the time and money it takes to set up and promote your mini site. Here’s a good article from FastCompany that clarifies some of the confusion about the new FTC guidelines for affiliate marketing.

There you have it, everything you ever wanted to know about creating, optimizing, promoting and making money from mini-sites.

Now go do it!

Don’t let the name, mini-sites fool you. These small, highly focused websites or sales letters are the key to maximizing your profits from a targeted niche.

You don’t have to spend a large amount of money on software, how-to eBooks, or video tutorials. You can begin creating profitable do-it-yourself (DiY) mini-sites if you learn a few basic principals first.

In this post, I’ll walk you through the basic steps and then point you to some resources if you need additional help. So let’s get the ball rolling…

What is a mini-site?

A mini-site is typically single-page a website that focuses on selling a product or service to a particular niche. Sometimes a mini-site may have more than one page such as Affiliate Program, Support, and Online Demo etc. However, the vast majority are a long pitch page. The laser-like focus on a product and/or niche is what makes mini-sites so good at making you money. When done right, of course!

Advantages of a mini-site

A mini-site is probably the simplest online business model for making money. There are several reasons for their success:

• They are quick and easy to set up (see below)
• You don’t need any special skills, just some basic HTML skills but good copywriting knowledge (You can outsource both these tasks or invest a small amount in one of the resources listed here)
• It is possible to set up a mini-site in a day or two so you can be online and making money quickly

Here’s an example of one of my mini-sites:

5 keys to profitable mini-sites

The keys to creating profitable mini-sites are the same as most marketing efforts, be it on or offline. Let’s go over these five key points, master these and you’ll be well on your way to making money with mini-sites and setting yourself up for a lifetime of passive income from Internet marketing.

1. Find a hungry market. Legendary copywriter Gary Halbert used to ask his students this question, “If you and I both owned a hamburger stand and we were in a contest to see who would sell the most hamburgers, what advantages would you most like to have on your side?” His students would list various advantages that they would like and when asked Gary what he would want, he replied, “is A STARVING CROWD!”
   For your mini-site, it means you need to find a niche market that is starving or hungry for your information.
2. Create a targeted info product. Produce an information product that will satisfy the needs of your niche market. Imagine a crowd that desperately wants to find out how to cut their home utility bills and you give them a step-by-step guide showing them how to slash their costs by 80% or more. They’ll beat your door down as long as you keep in mind the next key. To truly make it a money-making venture, you need to create upsells and related products to continue selling to your existing customer base (see “Don’t Look for Hot Niches, Find Profitable Niche Markets” for more information)
3. Price it right: Pricing your info product is market driven and does require some research (may be even some trial and error before getting it right). Don’t ever get into a price war with other marketers; nobody makes any money that way. Instead, separate yourself from others by offering useful bonuses that can’t be found anywhere else. Of course, you don’t have to worry about competition if you are the original creator of the product.
4. Write persuasive sales copy: Remember, when you ask people to buy your information product online, they don’t get to see it or touch it. So your sales copy must do the work of an astute salesperson without coming across as sneaky. Your copy must clearly explain the solution you are offering, the benefits the customer can expect and persuade him/her to act now because it is in their best interest. You must make an emotional connection that seems logical to your readers.
   I understand copywriting may not be your strong suite, take a look at my eBooks, “Content Marketing Roadmap” and “Words to Profits” for some help.
5. Create an enticement (a giveaway report or eCourse): The truth is most first-time visitors will not buy from you. Don’t waste this opportunity by losing them forever. Offer visitors a valuable free report or eCourse in exchange for their name and email address. Once they confirm, continue building a trusting relationship using drip or email marketing. You can not only sell them your current product but also recommend related and affiliate products in the future. That’s how you build lifetime customers from your mini-sites.

Armed with these five keys, you are now ready to start creating your first mini-site. Stay tuned for future articles on optimizing, promoting and monetizing your mini-sites.

Additional resources: (Disclosure: These are my affiliate products and links)

• Cash Making Power Sites
• The Mini Site Formula
• SiteBuilder Elite

It’s not enough to know what upselling is. Ask any successful online entrepreneur or businessperson and s/he will tell you that it’s taking care of the extra details while you tweak your process, often make the most dramatic difference in upselling.

One way Internet marketers often fail to do this is by not being aware of the most common upselling mistakes.

Mistake #1: Overselling

This happens when you attempt to upsell too many items all at once. Providing too many chances lead to confusion and often, the customer just clicks away. There goes your upsell!

Mistake #2: Not Keeping It Relevant

Similar to overselling, one of the biggest mistakes new Internet marketers make is offering items that are unrelated to your original offer.

For example, offering a Special Report on “Improving Your Golf Swing in Ten Easy Steps” as a cross sell for an eBook on “Knock Your Socks Off Sales” would almost certainly not be as successful as offering an accompanying Special Report on “Hot Button Sales Triggers.”

Mistake #3: Putting the Upsell Below the Fold

This is a small design issue – but can have a major impact on your upsell. Whenever possible and appropriate, try to place your upsell items above the fold on your web pages. That would be in the top part of the page that is visible without scrolling vertically…

Mistake #4: Ignoring Customer Fears

This involves not answering or anticipating objections by showing at least one benefit that would overcome that objection.

For example, not being aware of the problem that your customers have expressed in a survey such as “getting lost” in the checkout process. You may want to add checkboxes instead of buttons to reduce confusion because most people fear that clicking on a button will take them to another page, which adds unnecessary complexity to the checkout process.

Mistake #5: Offering Competing Products

If you’re trying to sell your eBook on “Creative Cross Stitch in 10 Easy Steps”, in your upsell you wouldn’t want to add an affiliate link for a competitor’s (lower priced) product called “Easy As 1-2-3 Cross Stitch”.

Showing competing products is undesirable because it can cause confusion or indecision – and once a customer feels a hint of either, even at the checkout page, they’re likely to get frustrated or nervous, close the window – and abort the purchase.

Don’t make these common mistakes that can kill an upsell.

Want to learn how to avoid these and 12 other common mistakes that can kill an upsell? Grab a copy of new eBook “Upsell Profits Blueprint.”

You may be thinking about something exotic like pop ups, rotating banners or Flash animations or other bells and whistles to draw attention. Nope, it’s much simpler than that and far more effective in upselling.

I’m referring to the often-overlooked prime real estate on your website that is viewed by every subscriber and customer. You are making a big mistake if you are not using this spot for upselling. Can you guess what I’m talking about?

It is your thank you page!

Every subscriber has to visit the thank you page (you are using an opt-in option for building your lists, right?). Don’t just say something bland like, “Thank you for signing up for my newsletter.”

Instead, offer them one of your paid products at a discount and over deliver by throwing in a surprise free report (with links to affiliate products and your own products for backend sales).

Use this idea to create something similar for your own thank you pages and watch your upsells explode.

Here’s a screen shot of one of my own “Thank You” pages.

You can apply the same principles to your download page after a customer buys a product. Here you can use any one or more of the following types of upsells:

• One Time Offers (OTO’s) – How to Create an Upsell
• The Upgrade Upsell: Basic – Deluxe – Professional model
• Resell Rights Upsell
• Bundled Upsells
• Longer-term discount Upsell
• Peace of Mind Upsell
• Affiliate Upsells

Let’s take upselling up a notch. How about using your “Error” pages to upsell?

When a site visitor clicks on a link that has moved or is non-existent, they get a “404 Page Not Found Error.” Why not use it for upselling instead?

This is what I say on my error pages to upsell an affiliate product.

Oops! It looks like the page you’re looking for has moved.

I’m so sorry for the inconvenience. As a token of my appreciation for you, please accept this gift – a report by Jimmy D. Brown, “Six Steps To Six Figures With List Marketing”

Thank you so much for visiting my website.

Achinta “Archie” Mitra
DiY Marketing Coach

PS. If you’d like to read more information on our website, please click on a link in the site map shown below.

Upselling requires you to learn the art and master the craft of effective selling. You can’t just slap a discount on a product and say, “There, I’m upselling!”

But neither does it require a PhD. Just a little knowhow and imagination.

Want more profitable upselling strategies? Look at my new eBook, “Upsell Profits Blueprint.”

Where and how are you using upsells in your business? Leave your comments below.

Your are probably familiar with E. Jerome McCarthy’s classic 4Ps of marketing that he first proposed in 1960. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, here’ a quick recap:

Product — an object or a service that is mass-produced or manufactured on a large scale with a specific volume of units.

Price — the amount a customer pays for the product.

Place — the location where a product can be purchased. It is often referred to as the distribution channel.

Promotion — all of the communications that a marketer may use in the marketplace

When it comes to Internet Marketing, probably one of the first things you have to do is choose a domain name for your online business. This is one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make. To help you with this important first step, I’ve come up with the 4Ps of website domain name selection.

Whether you’re creating a blog that will act as the hub for your business or registering a domain for a niche site, you need to take the time to find the right domain because changing domain names after you’ve built up traffic and credibility can do irreparable damage to your business.

Use these 4Ps as guidelines to help you find an ideal domain name for your site.

1. PURPOSE

Determine the primary purpose of your website. Is it to establish you as an expert in a niche? If so, you’ll need to do some keyword research to figure out which phrases would naturally attract traffic.

Are you buying a domain to sell a product? If so, your product name or a variation of the product name should be in your domain name.

Ideally, your website’s domain should describe what the website is about, for example, my domain name is diymarketingcoach.com and it is about providing do-it-yourself marketing guidance to Internet marketers.

You could also use popular keywords in your domain name, for example, quickfatlosshelp.com for a rapid weight loss site.

Determining the primary purpose of you website will help you decide what keywords to use.

2. PRESENCE

Is it critical to have the exact keyword phrase in your domain name? For some websites, you may be able to get by using another similar phrase. However, for others you may need that exact phrase. In such cases, you can try adding hyphens, prefixes or suffixes to your domain name if your exact phrase is not available.

This way you’ll still be able to use the exact phrase and establish your site in your niche. A general rule of thumb is to use no more than two hyphens in a domain name.

3. POTENTIAL

How do you plan to grow your site? By this, I mean are you choosing a domain name for a mini-site or is it a sales letter? Or are you planning to launch a portal for content with hundreds of pages? Look at my main domain name for example. Diymarketingcoach.com is a broad and all encompassing name for a site that includes many pages and posts about various topics on Internet marketing. Whereas for one of my information products, “Upsell Profits Blueprint,” I’ve picked a specific domain name, upsellprofitsblueprint.com.

4. PRICE

You can buy any domain name you want as long as you’re willing to pay the price. In most cases though, you’ll want to register an unused domain name. These domain names cost anywhere between $7 and $12 depending on who you use (I use www.godaddy.com for my domain registration).

However, if you have a very specific business name and you must have that name as your domain name, you can try contacting the domain owner. Do a whois search to get the domain owner’s name and contact information (not always visible to the public).

Try to negotiate a fair price to buy the domain name if the current owner is willing to sell it. There are services available that specialize in buying and selling domain names.

These 4Ps will come into play whenever you are choosing a domain name for your website. Carefully consider how your domain name will be used before you buy one.

Have you heard of domain flipping? If you are looking for a no-risk, no-worry method of making a living online, it just doesn’t get any better than this. With domain flipping, you can literally take a $9 domain name and flip it for $90, $900, even $9,000 quickly and easily!

Grab a copy of my small report “Profitable Domain Flipping” right now and master how to flip domains for large profits, quickly and easily.

You’ve done all the hard work and driven traffic to your site and your sales page is converting well. Why settle for a one-time sale when you’ve done all the heavy lifting?

How can you get your customers to spend more money without feeling any undue pressure while you make a bigger profit? I have two words for you, Upsell Profits!

What is upselling? It is the act of selling add-on or extra products to customers. It sounds easy enough but the reality is, you have to learn how to effectively upsell without turning off your customers.

In order to make a one-time buyer into a lifetime customer, you need to build a trusting relationship. You cannot do that if all you are doing is pressuring the customer into buying more so you can squeeze every dime out of them.

An ill-timed or poorly planned upsell can make you lose the initial sale instead of making you more money. Unless the customer feels like they are getting more value for their money with your upsell, they will reject your offer outright and may be annoyed enough by your amateurish attempt to oversell, they may abandon their first purchase.

Here are two quick ways to create a good upsell:

1. Make the right offer – the add-on product or upgrade in your upsell should help to educate your customer as to how it would enhance their experience with the first product. They may not even be aware of the product that you are offering. It is your job to make them first understand the benefits of the upsell before asking them to buy. Obviously, your upsell offer must complement the original product. Otherwise, you will come across as a pushy salesperson forcing them to buy more.

2. Offer a great value – In today’s tight economy, consumers are very mindful of how and where they spend their money. Your upsell should come across as a great value. I’m not suggesting that you giveaway your products for nothing. Price your upsells such that the few extra dollars they spend will feel like an incredible bargain.

Put yourself in their shoes, don’t you want to get the best deal every time you shop? Make your customers feel the same way.

Once you master the art of upselling, you will make your customers feel like you have their best interests at heart. They will trust your recommendations and willingly refer new customers to you.

Congratulations, you’ve just gained a lifetime customer and acquired new ones who are receptive rather than resistant to your offers. That’s the way to make more money from upsells.

How can you learn to effectively upsell? Grab a copy of my new 74-page eBook, “Upsell Profits Blueprint” including my secret sauce for exploding profits with built-in upsells that you won’t find anywhere else.

How are you using upsells in your online business? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

In my last post, I talked about the five basic Internet marketing business models. One of the most profitable models is Info Products Marketing.

Let’s look at the seven essential things you must have to be a successful information products marketer.

1. Your own domain
It is possible to sell your information product without a website, however, you will find it almost impossible to make a significant amount of sales without one.

Choosing a domain name that closely relates to your product name is always a good idea. For example, you’ll find my info product, “The Easy Guide to Unlimited Traffic” at www.ezguidetounlimitedtraffic.com. The product and the domain names were carefully selected after doing a keyword research for popular terms related to website traffic.

There may be occasions where a domain name may not be available. Let’s say you are selling/promoting an affiliate info product and the domain name related to the product name is already taken. One way for you to still get a good domain name is to add “the” or “my” to the beginning of the name and see if you can buy that name. Ex. www.myaffiliateproductname.com or www.theaffiliateproductname.com.

2. Sales letter or mini-site

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of long, one page websites selling information products. Yes, after sometime, they all begin to look the same but they do work!

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel here. Stick to a sales letter, a method that has been tried and tested to be very successful in selling information products. Focus on making your headline and the offer stand out from the rest.

To be successful, you need a sales letter on your webpage and a link to your payment processor…and that’s it! Don’t link to other websites or show paid advertising on your product’s website. A sales letter will catch the attention of the visitors and convince them why they need to purchase your product.

It’s okay to add a sign up form at the bottom or upon exit to capture leads because very seldom will visitors buy on their very first visit.

Read my post 5 Keys to High Converting Mini-Sites to learn more about creating a winning sales letter.

3. Application programs

Information products are usually delivered in PDF format. This is a format that’s supported by all computer platforms and the free Adobe Reader is readily available if not already installed on the reader’s computer.

PDFs also allow you to retain control over your documents as they are not easily editable, especially if you’ve password protected them.

If you are using MS Word to edit/create your products then you will need to buy the full Adobe Acrobat package in order to make PDFs out of your Word files.

Another option is to open Word files in Open Office. It will allow you to create PDFs from there. You can download the free software from here.

4. Graphics

Any good salesperson will tell you “it’s the sizzle that sells the steak.” You’ll need an attractive cover for your eBook. Most sales letters also use a header or banner and icons for “buy now” and “money back guarantee.”

It’s okay to do without a banner if you are trying to grab attention with a subhead. Here’s an example of one of my sales letters without a banner. The 3D covers that you normally see for eBooks are created using an action script in Photoshop. This requires special skills and expensive software. You may want to seriously consider outsourcing this part (see below.)

5. Payment processor

To sell your information products online, you’ll need some kind of a payment processor. Two of the most popular ones are PayPal and ClickBank.

Before you start driving traffic to your sales letter, make sure you have tested your payment processor by making a trial purchase. This way you can be sure that your visitors are able to buy without any hassles.

6. Marketing strategy

Successful info product marketers know that once they’ve created the product and built their website, they have to drive traffic to the sales page. If you start out with a complete strategy of marketing your website, you’ll be able to put it into place as soon as your website is ready to go. Article marketing campaigns, joint ventures and pay per click advertising can all be part of your strategy.

For website traffic, look at my eBook “The Easy Guide to Unlimited Traffic” and for help with content marketing, see “Content Marketing Roadmap.”

7. Affiliates

Not every product you create will lend itself to affiliates marketing it. Those that are deemed to have a high potential to convert well and earn them good commissions will be favored over others.

Whenever possible, you should certainly move toward creating information products that will attract affiliates.

With affiliate marketing, you can have other well-known marketers driving traffic to your website and creating sales for you.

One of the best resources that I know of learning the art of affiliate marketing is SalesArmySecrets.com.

By combining these 7 essentials with your winning information product, you’ll have a winning formula for earning good money from selling info products.

If all this sounds overwhelming to you, I recommend you consider a company like AMA Interactive (my web design company) to take care of everything for you. That way you can concentrate on product creation and marketing and leave the technical details to them.

How are you selling your info products? Share your thoughts by posting a comment.

The sad fact is that 95% of Internet marketers fail in their online business. Choosing the wrong Internet business model is often the reason for this alarmingly high failure rate.

Most nebwies buy every eBook and video training course they can find on marketing their online business. Many join expensive membership programs to learn how they too can work only 4 hours a week and rake in the big bucks just like their favorite marketing guru promised.

Sorry folks but it ain’t gonna happen unless you choose the correct online business model that’s right for you.

Internet marketing is full of choices when it comes to different business models. The key to your success lies in doing your homework and finding the one business model that agrees with your way of thinking, business philosophy and your passions.

Once you find a marketing business model that you like, stick with it. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting your time, money and energy hopping from one business to another. Trust me when I say that’s the “secret” to making money online.

There are many flavors and variations but in my opinion, there are five basic online business models that can make you money.

Here are the basic Internet marketing business models:

1. Affiliate Marketing – probably the easiest business model to follow. You don’t need to spend time or money creating your own product. You just need to be good at marketing and promoting someone else’s product(s).

You’ll earn commissions for sending buyers to the product seller’s website. With the right promotional techniques, you can establish yourself in a niche and make affiliate commissions from several different programs all at once.

The biggest drawback I see with this business model is that you do all the heavy lifting of finding customers, pre-selling them and then get them to buy a product. All for a one-time commission check. You are pretty much at the mercy of the product creator and you never know when she/he’ll pull the plug on the offer.

If you do decide affiliate marketing is the right model for you then I suggest you download this FREE Affiliate Marketing Report by Jimmy D. Brown: 3 Keys To Creating Big-Time Commission Checks. In it, you’ll discover how to increase your affiliate sales month after month.

2. Online Auction Business – Online auctions represent an entirely new breed of auction business. Instead of being run by one person or company, a marketplace plays host to hundreds of individuals or companies who want to expand or start an online auction business. It would be next to impossible to accomplish such an auction outside of the Internet.

eBay is one of the most frequently visited sites on the Internet. When you become an eBay seller, you’ll never have to worry about finding traffic for your offering. You can sell a variety of things on eBay, including information products. Although, there have been some recent changes to the way information products are sold on eBay.

The amount of traffic and ease of setting up your offering make eBay a strong business model. The downside is that your business relies on a third party site whose changing rules may have a negative impact on your own business.

I recently read the newly revised and updated version of Internet Marketing Center’s(IMC) “The Insider Secrets To Selling On eBay,” and I’ve got to tell you, it’s a must-have for ANYONE wanting to start earning money with online auctions.

It doesn’t matter if you have NO business experience, NO money to invest, and NO products to sell. IMC’s team of eBay PowerSellers will show you the exact steps you need to follow to start a serious eBay business. Right now, they’ll even let you try out the Insider Secrets to Selling on eBay for a full 30 days for just $2.95!

3. Content Marketing – this is where you create lots of useful content in various niches, drive traffic from search engines and then monetize the content. Some examples are AdSense blogs or websites, selling banner ads on your site and flipping websites (selling a high traffic site to the highest bidder).

You could even become a well-paid freelancer offering your copywriting, web design and/or programming services. Visit elance.com, guru.com or rentacoder.com for hundreds of examples of people making a good living freelancing.

If the AdSense model appeals to you, then one of the best models I’ve found is Matt Callen’s HyperVRE. You can create a long-lasting passive income stream with literally an infinite potential with VRE (Virtual Real Estate) and AdSense websites that produce real proven results, without having any prior website design or marketing knowledge.

4. Info Products Marketing – this is where you create your own products and are in complete control of your online business model. By creating an information product, or hiring a ghostwriter to write one for you, you can sell your product over and over again through your website.

It does require a one-time investment in time or money if you outsource the product creation part, but the real money lies in selling the same product to many customers without any further time or money spent on your end. Most smart product marketers have lots of back-end sales built into their front-end eBooks or videos. This in turn can boost your income many times over the initial sale.

You can set up an affiliate program and recruit others who can sell your products for you.

The only major downside is that you can spend a lot of time and money working on a niche product that may turn out to be not very profitable.

Look at my Information Products Catalog for examples of infoproducts that I have created and are selling through my blog site.

What if you are not up to writing a 50-60 page eBook and don’t have the money to outsource?

You can easily overcome this problem by writing 7-10 page reports and parlay that into a moneymaking business.

My Small Reports Vault has proven to be very profitable. These are small reports on different aspects of Internet marketing. Each small report is about 20 pages long, some are longer and are packed with practical and actionable do-it-yourself marketing techniques that have been proven to work for building a successful online business.

5. Membership Sites — this business model is extremely popular right now with many well known Internet Marketing heavyweights. Why? Unlike affiliate or product marketing where you make a one-time sale, a membership site offers you recurring income month after month. This is the closest thing to earning a regular paycheck on the Internet.

In a membership site, you can provide monthly reports on a niche topic, host a forum or offer one-on-one coaching for a flat fee each month. You can even use an affiliate program with your membership site so that other people will send new members your way.

The downside with this business model is that you need to keep providing fresh content each month to keep your members interested enough to stick around. This may be a difficult business model to follow if you are just starting out with Internet marketing.

The best resource for membership sites that I recommend is Jimmy D. Brown’s Membernaire.

In this post, I have provided a quick overview of the five basic Internet marketing business models out there. As you can see, there are pluses and minuses to every business model available online.

Take stock of your own strengths and decide what you want to get out of your online business, then pick the business model that suits you the best.

What Internet business model are you using? Share your experiences by leaving a comment.

In my post yesterday, Upselling in a Down Economy, I wrote about upsells mainly with tangible products, even if they are digital downloads.

How do you create upsells if you are a coach, a consultant or a copywriter? Someone who is selling his or her expertise rather than a product? In my earlier post, I did mention one idea where you use lifetime upgrades to upsell.

In this post, I’ll focus exclusively on upselling services. I’m going to use examples from two people who I consider masters of their own domains, Jimmy D. Brown and Steve Slaunwhite.

Coaches and consultants:

Here is one very effective method that I learned from Jimmy.

Offer personalized Q & A coaching. As an Inner Circle member, part of his Membernaire™ program (Yup, that’s an affiliate link), people get to send him specific questions by email, one per day, Mon. – Fri. Jimmy responds with personalized answers which are specific to the question. This is way beyond your standard FAQs that you find on most sites

He charges $197.00 per month for this additional service and there’s a maximum limit of 50 members. You do the math, that’s an extra $10,000 per month in profit and he calls it the “entry level” method of coaching!

Grab a copy of Jimmy’s 3 Ways To Start Your Own Highly Profitable Coaching Program. You’ll get two more advanced techniques that’ll boost your coaching income right now. Costs only $10 but the tips are priceless.

Copywriters:

Here’s a simple but amazingly profitable upsell that I learned from Steve Slaunwhite. He calls it his “Free To Shining Fee” strategy.

As part of his highly successful case studies writing service, he often had to interview his clients’ customers to get additional materials and testimonials. He offered this as part of his fixed-price copywriting service.

Steve decided to repackage this service and charge extra for it. He calls it his “Success Story & Testimonial Development” service and it costs $500. Despite his initial trepidations, he found his clients are willing to buy the add-on service and appreciate the extra value that he provides.

Steve says, “Overall, my average income from case study work increased by about 25%. And I didn’t have to work additional hours to earn it.”

How’s that for an upsell?

If you are a B2B copywriter or want to be coached by Steve personally, you should make it a point to visit his site at www.ForCopywritersOnly.com (Nope, not an affiliate link).

Want to learn the basics of upsells? Sign up for my free 5-day mini-course, “Essentials of Upsells.” Just fill in your name and email in the form below and the first lesson will be delivered to you as soon as you confirm.

Need more in-depth information on upselling and get ahead of your competition? Grab a copy of my 33-page small report, “Profiting from Upsells.”