Through my mentoring program with Alex Jeffreys, and the fantastic community of like minded people in this program – they are like minded in that they have set their minds on making “Internet Marketing” WORK FOR THEM – I have learned and discovered a lot of different aspects of my own internet marketing “business”, or “journey” as you might call it.

Over the past 12 months I have focused on “JV Launch” promotions, and ongoing affiliate information products with a medium price point ($500 to $2,000).

I’ve made roughly $60,000 in net profits, and they break down like this:

$32,000 – Real Estate Launches

$8,000 – Internet Marketing Launches

$20,000 – REI Ongoing Promotions

I have turned out in the top 10 affiliates in several of the REI launches.

Now, let me first state that I am absolutely thrilled about these results, because they prove (to me) that internet marketing is a viable, valid, doable income source, and I’ve come a long way since taking Alex Mandossian’s Teleseminar Secrets Class – on my way to making the first $1 on the internet.

Now here is where I went wrong: I didn’t have enough focus on building my own list (even though I developed a system that let me add several hundred subscribers to my list in each launch), and I didn’t do enough to develop my own profile as an authority by creating products of my own.

As a result, my list has grown, but not exponentially as I would have liked – and as you might expect. List building – done the right way is an aspect of “conversion” in marketing. Converting a visitor into a subscriber to your list is one of the most important steps in building the relationship with your list.

If you do that right, you will start building your relationship as a trusted adviser and authority in your niche with your subscribers immediately. As a result, it matters LESS if you have tons of sales on a launch or on an ongoing promotion, because your list will have a much greater long-term value.

So, this is my goal in getting to the next IM income level from here:

• Offer and deliver more value
• Build a stronger relationship with my subscribers
• Focus on building that list stronger and faster

Please let me know what you think about this blog post! Leave a comment, and retweet it if you think your Twitter followers will appreciate it.

This week has been a pretty crazy week with new ideas, impressions and things that I’ve learned, and new projects deriving from that.

First, I was able to get on a bonus call with Rich Schefren and got a crystal clear insight about the simple truth of Internet Marketing, and I want to tell you about my “Aha moment” from this call.

For the longest time I’ve been reluctant to get into “Internet Marketing”, but rather learned how to use the techniques of Internet Marketers to promote products and services in other (non IM) niches online.

That’s good, but I feel that many people – like myself – struggle with making that transition from the Internet Marketing niche to other niches when applying internet marketing strategies.

The truth is, it’s really really simple if you understand the real purpose of each piece of the internet marketing puzzle and then transfer it to other niches.

So here is my IM visualization – for Internet Marketers, Bloggers, and any offline businesses looking to generate leads from the internet.

(click on the image to see full size)

I hope this helps you as much as it did for me – just clarifying where the different components like list building, email marketing, traffic etc. belong in the overall marketing picture.

One of the points that Rich made on this call was that simple methods are going to work better than complex ones. With that said – don’t over complicate matters. Here are the simple steps to start:

1. Put your List Building Mechanics in place (either on your log or separate lead capture pages)

2. Make up an incentive for people to sign up to your list. If you post great content on your blog, this alone may get some readers to want to be on your list for updates, either by email or RSS.

3. Create Traffic Magnets that drive traffic to your blog or lead capture page.

The 3 Key Elements of Social Media Monetization are: (click play on the video below to see…)

Reserve Your Spot on the Free Webinar with Perry Belcher – Click Here!

http://ThomasBartke.com/loves/hsa-marketing-system

Step 1: Sign up to these 3 viral marketing services

http://ThomasBartke.com/loves/viralurl

http://ThomasBartke.com/loves/juggernaut

http://ThomasBartke.com/loves/listjoe

Step 2: Get Your Affiliate link you want to promote

…and plug it into juggernaut

Step 3: Get Your Juggernaut created link

…and plug it into viralurl