Building An Internet Business – The First Four Steps

#1 Start To Build A List

I am sure that will surprise many people, but I would not start with a product. Starting with a list would make it easier down the road when I actually start marketing a product and/or a service.

A very easy way to start building a list is with a newsletter. It doesn’t have to be a large one. Just a basic newsletter with a couple of articles will work. You could have two articles and a product review to start it off. You can lay out your newsletter in something as simple as Word and save it as a PDF.

You’ll want to collect the email addresses of those people requesting your newsletter in an autoresponder. The company I recommend for this is one I also own called Sender.info.

I have recommended others in the past, but just could not get everything I wanted in them so I went out and searched until I found the easiest and with the most important elements I could think of.

This autoresponder is where you’ll gather your list. You can gather any amount of information, but I usually just ask for name and primary email. If you are going to market events at a later time, asking for a zip code is a good idea also.

With an autoresponder, when someone opts in, their information goes onto the list. You can create a list of messages to market products or to keep in touch with them as they opt in to your list.

For example, the list that I would be building, in this scenario, would be a monthly newsletter. You can do it more frequently if you want, but I’m not that motivated and you need to think about how much work you want to put into this.

You are going to want to set it up so your newsletter is sent out automatically. You could have someone else write your newsletters or you could write them yourself. Either way, I recommend writing them all at the same time for the whole year.

You could literally get this done in a matter of a day or two. Again, they come onto your list today, and 30 days from today they receive another email, but it’s important that it’s automated.

Put the emails you’re going to send in the autoresponder and mark it to go out every 30 days from the opt in. Every 30 days it sends them the next newsletter in the queue, then the next one in the queue and then the next one.

So I’d start with a list, and I would start the list by getting people to opt-in for a newsletter. Basically, an opt-in is just a form that says here’s my free newsletter, and then it has a place for them to enter their name and email address. They hit the submit button, enter your autoresponder and are put in the que to start receiving those newsletters.

The autoresponder actually gives you a form code to put on the website to gather those names. If you don’t know how to do that, you can easily go to Freelancer.com and hire someone to set it up for you so you don’t have to worry about it.

#2 Create A Brand

This one is very important if you are creating a business. While a logo is not all that encompasses a brand, it’s a good place to start. Whether your name is your brand or you have a completely separate company name, you must have a logo.

As you know, I use my name as my brand. Even my company name, Armand Morin Network, includes my name. Donald Trump does the same thing. Trump is the brand, but he has a unique logo made up of a crest. Oprah is another example of a great brand. The ‘O’ in Oprah is written in a very specific way and that’s a great brand.

What you want to look at is how to brand you and/or your name, if you are the brand. Sometimes you may want to brand your company. That’s okay too.

I have created brands and logos for each and every individual one of my companies, as well as my own personal one. So, when it comes to your brand, I’d start with a logo.

There are several places that design logos, I recommend, 99Designs.com they have a supply of stock logos as well as a bidding service to have multiple designers give you their take on what your logo should look like.

#3 Build A Blog

The most efficient way to do this is to have WordPress installed on your own hosting account underneath your own domain name. This is very key, because all your traffic is going to ultimately go here.

If you didn’t know how to install WordPress, just post a job up on Freelancer.com and I would say something like, “I need WordPress installed on my website”.

I would also have a custom theme made. A theme is how WordPress looks. It’s the look and feel of a blog or website. It’s the actual design of WordPress. The reason I would have a custom theme made is because I want my website to look like me.

I don’t want to use a free template where I might look like a bunch of other people. I want people to come to my website and know that it’s a very distinct unique look and feel.

If you go to Google and you type in custom WordPress design, you’ll find a bunch of people that will make a custom theme for your WordPress site. They will integrate your logo, as well. Don’t forget to allow people to subscribe to the newsletter we talked about in number 1.

#4 Start  a Facebook Page

Over one billion people like and comment on Facebook an average of 3.2 billion times every day. With a strong presence on Facebook, your business can be part of these conversations. It is one of the most powerful forms of marketing out there, word-of-mouth marketing.

I’d start the Facebook page and I would integrate my blog in with it. It’s pretty simple to do. First, I’d post something new to my blog. There are Facebook plug ins that will automatically notify Facebook and tell them to pull in content from my blog onto my Facebook page to make it look like I’m adding more content, which I am ultimately, except its all automatic.

That’s key word, “automatic”, I don’t want to work more; I want to work less, but I want to work smart. With Facebook, you can build relationships with your current clients, reach new people and drive sales.