Work From Home Opportunities

When I started to market online well over ten years ago, things were much different. It was difficult to accept payment for my products, to keep updating my Website, and to follow up with all of my customers. At the time, it seemed almost overwhelming, but I found a way to make it all work (think 50+ hours every week).

Now a decade later, there are three tools that have literally changed the way I do business, and made my online marketing business much easier to run on a daily basis. With that in mind, these are my top 3 Internet marketing innovations:

PayPal

Before PayPal, if you wanted to accept payments online, you needed to apply for a costly merchant account. Then you had to hope to be approved. This made it extremely difficult to get any online business off the ground.

Now from Ebay to simple websites, marketers are making millions of dollars in profits that they otherwise never would have without PayPal.

Autoresponders

The lifeblood of any online business is email marketing. The ability to collect the email addresses of your target market and follow-up with new product updates, current sales and promotions, and keep your business fresh in the mind of your hottest prospects is extremely powerful. So powerful in fact, that the innovation of autoresponders is responsible for millions of dollars in online sales every single year.

Blogs

Before blogs, it was extremely difficult to keep your site updated and fresh. With the creation of blog software such as WordPress, you can now post your content to your website with the press of a button. You don’t even need to know HTML or how to even write code. If that wasn’t enough, the search engines love blogs and index their pages much faster and more efficiently than your standard static website.

Today, many people are profiting handsomely after creating popular blogs in niches such as politics, sports and celebrity lifestyles. In fact, an article on CNN just broke the news about several famous blogs run by stay at home moms being sponsored by none other than Wal-Mart.

That alone speaks to the far reaching power of blogging and the culture surrounding it.

While this list may be different for everyone, there is no doubt about the impact these three innovations have had on all Internet marketers.

Today, so many online marketers are afraid to let their real personality shine though, for fear of looking unprofessional. You should always be yourself, not what you think others want from you. This is what will make you stand out from the pack. You obviously don’t want to offend people, but by using a little common sense, it isn’t difficult to find your online voice. When you do, people will naturally want to listen to what you have to say.

Remember, people like to be entertained, especially when they are being educated. It has been proven in study after study, that in order to gain the trust of your audience, you must capture their attention. If you fail to fascinate and dazzle them, why would they care what you have to say?

If you have a good sense of humor, don’t be afraid to make people laugh. If you are a good storyteller, use stories to entertain and educate your audience. Everyone has a special talent that is a potential asset when relating to your target market. Any marketer who doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity to excite their audience is leaving an unknown amount of lost profits on the table. Killing your audience with boredom is never a good recipe for success.

Now as I said before, you must still use a little common sense. For instance, if you think you have a special gift for making fun of fat people, I would suggest you keep this special talent to yourself. You want to entertain, not offend. There is a big difference.

Don’t be yet another dull online marketer spewing out the same, tired BS. Cook up your online personality by adding a little common sense and a big dash of your personality. It will make things fun for both you and your audience!