Tips for Getting an Online Marketing Education - Part 1

Tips for Getting an Online Marketing Education - Part 1
By: Steve Warshaw
Senior Contributor for Top Internet Guides

When staring your home based business, getting an education in online marketing will be critical in achieving success. Unfortunately, unless you've had the luxury of working for a company who specializes in this marketing medium, you will find your educational options to be very confusing.

I decided to write this guide and F.A.Q. so that those of you who are proactive enough to have done some research before jumping in (yes, that means you, since you found this article) deserve to avoid being scammed out of your hard earned money and wasting your precious time. I've been there, and it's amazingly frustrating.

Tip #1: Don't buy the hype...

Do not believe that any sort of eBook or email course created by "Internet Gurus" such as Mike Filsame or Ewen Chia as a real online education. Internet Guru's are masters of 2 things.

1. Getting you to give them your information
2. Selling you products that never teach you a complete lesson

This is the biggest trap for a new home business owner / affiliate marketer. You will find yourself buying 100's of products over and over again, only to find that even you follow them diligently, the only person making money is the guru.

Tip #2- Stay Focused On The plan

Tip #2 relates directly to tip number 1. In order to ensure that you don't get lost, make a list of goals and action items you feel you must achieve, and then prioritize them from 1 to 10 (10 being highest). Don't look at any item below 10 until all items with a 10 priority are complete. If you don't have much experience in marketing and developing an online business, I highly recommend that you go to http://www.umgsp.com. They have a complete program on education that will help you design and execute your online marketing and business development plan

Tip #3- Set an initial monthly budget for your online business needs.

This will help you stay focused on your plan, and keep your from falling into the guru trap in tip #1. I recommend the following as a good starting point.

1. Website and email hosting - $10 / month
2. Autoresponder service - $10 to $20 / month (this is for learning about autoresponders only)
   
3. PPC Advertising - $25 / month (this is for learning about ppc only)
4. Online marketing and business development educational materials - $40 to $50 / month
5. The latest super hyped up make money program, system, or mlm scheme - $20 / month

Total - $105 - $125 / month

You might think that number 5 doesn't make much sense; and if you plan on actually getting rich from these schemes then you would be correct. However, some of these programs do have very effective marketing campaigns, and studying the marketing behind them can teach you and give you ideas for your business.