Now what is this Internet Marketing all about?

We want to make our living conveniently at home, we want to make money for ourselves, not for our bosses and we were told, we can make make a lot of money here in the net without investing fortunes, as we would have to getting self-employed in the "real world". Marketing in the Internet is a cheap and easy way to reach billons of potential customers worldwide. And that is, what Internet Marketing is all about - Selling to millions online without too much effort.

Oops, did I just write cheap and easy? without too much afford?
What actually is it, we internet marketers are doing?
Do we sell our products and services? Are we affiliates and sell someone elses ?
Yes, we sure hope so!

Only - Also in logical, profane things like business the Internet is a totally different world . First of all, not our possibilities have exploded, but our competition.

In the 'real world' in a row of shops the one with the best price/quality relation or the nicest showcase sells best among the 10, 20 regional competitors. What we sell is not really important anymore - the importance is on getting customers, on how we sell, on how we advertise.

And so the basis of our work is automatically changed. What we actually do now is ADVERTISING. How else would we get customers? Without promotion nobody could sell anything, because nobody would get to know anything about the existence of the product.

When we work in the Net our business is no longer Marketing - that hopefully does run along in the sideline, we are now Promoters, PR Managers of our basic business. We still want to make money (really still from our Products ?)- now we can spend EITHER MONEY OR our own WORKING TIME on promoting.

Normally advertising is a highly paid buisiness in itself. We do not want to invest most of the potential profit from our sales into PR. Therefore we do it ourselves. We grab every free offer we can get that looks well at first glance, then we spend hours setting up and activating our accounts break all sufing records (that is, we would, were we in one traffic exchange only, which does not provide really big audience) probably even full screen so we can do nothing else beside - just to get some clicks to our sites and how long do we clear and sort our inboxes each day?

Do we value our time and all this work Zero suddenly?

It almost seems so ...

Originally the title of this here article should have been:
Free Advertising - is it really free?

Well - it does not cost money. But - the biggest part of OUR JOB now is advertising, why do we tend to forget that?

No, we cannot expect to get our traffic and our leads completely free, admins and owners of Traffic Exchanges etc. make their living of them, and have to pay their staff, so we MUST give something back.

When you look into this a bit more carefully, you will find vast differences between the real cost of the 'free' services. But who does this? We want to join and have quick results, in hits for simple traffic (or sales with luck.) Who sees on the first glance if he is taken advantage of?

No, we cannot exspect a free service from anyone, just because they want to be nice, want to help newbies or people who need money, lol, nobody would think that. - But we can expect a fair sevice for a fair price from a serious program.

We have to pay for every click we get and for every mail we send.
We pay by working, that is:
1. clicking or reading.
With this we repay our fellow Marketers for their investments of work or upgrade money. In many Programs an Upgrade makes sense, when they have proven to deliver (means: I get results from ADVERTISING MY STUFF), because it saves a lot of work.

2. We must promote the program itself.
Now here the differences between the providers show:
What is my reward for referrals?
Members who Paid for an upgrade get more for refs, ok so far, those who pay the owner money in addition are entitled to get more out of working for him.
Yes - That's what it is:
When we promote any other program then our own project WE WORK FOR THE OWNER OR ADMIN OF THIS PROGRAM - And by average business standards (but appearently only everywhere in the "real world") that entitles us to be rewarded likewise.
On the basis of traffic credits that is mostly ok, even when upgraded members get the double - well, they chose to pay for traffic in the first place, so must work less for it.

But when real cash is evolved, too many programs just keep the share of the free referrer, when the ref upgrades and do not even compensate with all the traffic he could have bought for that share of money.
Now: If we were looking to be employed, WOULD WE PAY OUR EMPLOYER FIRST? Or would we rather be entitled to be paid by him?

Too many of these 'free' programs take advantage of the fact that we tend to forget that 'pay' can not only mean money in some cases and jump on the word FREE. And obviously they can really count on our carelessnes - Would they otherwise practically force us to upgrade first thing after log on ?
Often if we don't, we do not even get the services we were promised for free as a tempt to join!

THEY DO NOT PAY US FOR OUR WORK if we do not buy an expensive upgrade, means: upgraded members can earn a residential income of 50% or so of the monthly upgrade from referring new members when these upgrade and pay their fee each month, and free members who do exactly the same get nothing, not even when they eventually chose to upgrade after their ref did.

For instance "My Lucky List" (no, not mine anymore, and for more then this main reason) openly tells you this when you look up your referral section: Look what you lost because you did not upgrade:... So do it now before you lose more provisions. (No thanks, I'm out.)

Now are we so naive because we did not pay money, or because this is the Internet where we use to spend too much time anyway, also for fun? Or must we accept such tactics cause we do not have much choice?

I have the feeling (or is it just the hope?) soon we will, new better services are coming, and this practice is going back. For good reasons .

On one hand "earn cash easy"- scams are much more tempting to those who do listbuilding and referring more for cash then for business. On the other hand, more people get to know their computers better. Everyone who has his own website and email-account can build his own list for really free with not much more effort then setting up an account.

Not everyone wants though, because it really saves 'non-techies' like me a lot of work to use an existing, proven program which also takes concern about not forgetting any legal phrases and procedures.

And if it really fair it is cheap for all - Mailers for instance: read for send, send for read, plus a reasonable for the admin - according to the business calculation of an office: 30% gain (my mailings, my downline-growth) - 30% pay for the workers/employees (here my reading) - 30% costs (my referring, perhaps a small service fee) And when the program is really good, it can be offered free for all members even, enough Marketers outsource their promotional work and buy banner exposures on popular sites or sponsor ads in emails and ezines.

Originally I just wanted to learn internet marketing to make myself known to possible customers of the wellness and nutrition products I still want to sell regionally here in Germany....

Now I dived deep into another region of Cyberia. And even here, where it is business, matter of fact, down to earth - even in Internet Marketing the mstification of the alternative reality is terrifyingly active and enhanced by those who know it and know how to use it to turn it into cash.

I think I am somehow getting ahead the right way, specially by avoiding to pay for anything, closing my ears to those that say there is nothing to gain without investments and risks, I will go on in the security that at least I cannot lose by learning and analyzing

But sure I will always wonder what this all here is about....
Do internet marketers want to earn from their specific projects? Or from advertising them? Or from referring promo-opportunities to other marketers, so that they can better advertise their own (?) Advertising?

Can it really bring success to get more things then I can ever use - just because I cannot even sort them as quickly as I get them (some I'm sure glad to have, and all is great stuff I would really love to use or read if iI only had time) Now I must get much quicker in selling them to other Advertisers like me, or give them away to earn from the hidden one one time occasion that I never took, and that always goes with the gifts.

Will I really find buyers who take it? Anybody who does not own the same himself already? Must I just be quick enough to make him buy before he realizes, or before everyone else sells it to each other?

And does all that really make any sense???