Most of the material on the make money online topic out there is backwards. When they are supposed to start teaching people how to make money, they start with methods or techniques. They tell you how SEO works, how to build links, how to use PPC, what monetization for your site to use, and so on. I’m guilty of that myself too. So let’s step back for a minute and go back to the roots of the problem.
The first step is very important because if you don’t get it right, everything you build has no foundation and will fall apart sooner than later. Sadly this is exactly the main reason why most beginners fail.
It has several names – value, product, problem solving, etc. It’s easy to just nod it away and think you will get it automatically, but that’s a mistake to do it. It must be well thought out and planned, every other step, all methods and techniques you will use are based on it. It’s much easier to focus when you know what to focus on.
In other words, to make money online you have to identify a problem that people have and that you can solve, then offer the solution to those people. Then you can choose any marketing techniques you can find and deem fit.
How does it work? There’s a big chance that you’re good at something, we all are good at something. We can solve certain problems better than other people can. We can use that as the pivot point. This is how I’ve done several software products through the years, as an example. I’m a programmer so I can create software solutions. I’ve gone through forums, saw what common problems people had, created a program, added it to my signature. The first customers came in without any extra promotion.
When you get the foundation right, everything else follows. On the other hand, if you’re trying to get away by providing no solution to a problem, no tricks will help you. As an example, take a very popular model that many beginners follow. They put up a site and try to push a make money product that they’ve bought (or haven’t even done that). The irony is that a site like that targets people who want to make money online and look for a solution. It’s supposed to solve the problem yet the owner is in the same trouble himself, he or she doesn’t have a solution and can’t help the visitors. Why then should they get any money?
No marketing tricks will help an offer that doesn’t even exist. Yet a strong offer practically sells itself. The action plan is simple:
- Identify what you’re good at
- Find niche forums and join the community
- Identify the common problems
- Create a solution
- Add a link to your offer to your signature
- Serve the first customers
- Use marketing techniques to expand
If that doesn’t work, it means either there’s no demand or your offer is too weak – try again. It’s simple but not easy. However if you try to skip to the last step and try to pull money out of thin air… well, that just ain’t gonna work.
Very very true. Great point to make, and one that mane people completely miss.
There is no point trying to push a product to a market that doesn’t want it. The only way you’re going to make money is buy solving a problem or satisfying a need.
This is a point that should be put in at the beginning of many ‘make money’ products/guides, because if there isn’t a market, you’re just going to lose money.
Ben @ Home Improvements.
It is true that we should be offering a service first and foremost and the marketing can be the way to expand on this initial idea. Thanks for sharing.
You hit it right on. The problem is that alot of newbies want to get started on the internet but have no idea on where to start. Then are so many things to learn and not to forget about the information overload which often gets them distracted from what they actually need to do to be successful.