Internet And Affiliate Marketing - Where To Start And Expected Costs During Startup

Every day I get a phone call or an email with almost exactly the same question. How do I get started in internet or affiliate marketing? Every day I ask the same three questions in return. How much do you know about marketing on the internet? What would you like to market? Then the final question I ask is how much they are willing to invest in a new business venture? What I am going to talk about are the most common answers I get to these questions. I also want to send out a wake up call to those that have bought into the myth that everything in regards to internet marketing is free and you can make millions from nothing and "All you have to do it buy this one thing!"

Now I am going to talk about these questions in reverse of the order I actually ask them. Because I end up telling people to look elsewhere after they tell me they have no money what so ever and are not willing to spend anything. Here is the wakeup call, there are costs involved with starting any business, be it internet and affiliate marketing or a traditional brick and mortar business. The only difference is that internet and affiliate marketing is cheaper and has a lower overhead than traditional brick and mortar businesses do. The very bare minimum you can expect as a startup and overhead cost for internet marketing is about $30, and that is assuming that you know how to do everything and that you can do all of your marketing for free.

Now is $30 a realistic amount for most people that have no experience what so ever in internet and affiliate marketing, no unfortunately it is not. Because there are two problems that are very common with people, that are looking to start out in the internet marketing business. They have no experience and no clue what they want to sell. Right there is the reason they will need a higher startup and a higher monthly cost while starting. The truth is that someone that has no experience, the buys a single book and then goes out and starts marketing their single affiliate link, will probably never see any money or at least not the type of money they where hoping for. They then read the book they bought again, then do the same thing one more time and once again do not understand why they are not making money. They have now spent $30 on their e-book, hundreds of hours marketing their affiliate link, and if they are lucky they made $100.

The good thing is that there is plenty of money to be made in internet and affiliate marketing, but you have to be willing to invest some money in your education and in the tools you have to use to do all of your marketing. People that understand that starting with internet and affiliate marketing is just like starting a business are usually the ones that succeed and generate large sums of money. Realistically a person with no experience, no knowledge of internet marketing and not technical knowledge to do all the work that has to be done can expect to spend about $1.000 just on the educational material they need. In addition expect monthly costs of no less than $50 a month just to keep everything up and running. This of course does not include the value of the time you put into learning everything you need to know, which can be quite a bit. There are of course other ways and resources where you can get complete training, get all the technical solutions taken care of and all you have to do is focus on the marketing. Solutions like that normally run at least $1.500 as a startup and probably around $50 a month. The difference is that it is an investment and increases the chances of you being able to do internet marketing for a living.

So is internet and affiliate marketing free? Not completely and not if you want to do right, but it is a lot less expensive to get started with an internet business than it is to get started with a traditional business. There are also great resources available that teach you step by step and give you hands on training to get you jump started with your internet business. Choose your investments wisely and expect to have some basic overhead. Internet marketing is still a great way to create a better life and increase your income beyond what you may ever have made before.

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