I'm gonna cut right to the quick and tell you, straight out, the first and most important tool every great marketer should posses. And the best thing about it, you don't have to worry about the price because it's free! Do you want to know what tool this is?
The nr. 1 tool every great marketer possesses is a brain asking him the right questions. It's really that simple, your nr. 1 tool in marketing is your brain asking you the exact questions you need to hear. Ask yourself HOW you are going to reach something(plan your way), don't ask yourself why. Make it happen, don't sit on the sidelines and say, I thought of that, when someone else is raking in the big dough using that idea all because you didn't take action. I recently consulted one of the top affiliate marketers and picked his entire brain to explode my affiliate marketing business. Of course I had to ask this question: If you had to start from the beginning with nothing left then your knowledge about internet marketing, HOW would you start? What are the tools you need to get started running an affiliate marketing business?
This is what he said: “Must-Have” Tool #1: You Need The Mindset! You heard me ramble about that so let’s skip to the next tool.
Important Tool #2: Set-up Your Website The very first step is setting up your 24/7 cash machine(your website). You want it to look good and professional so you can crank out as much profits as only you wish. The sky is really the limit after that. But you cannot do to much without web hosting and a domain name so you should get a web hosting account and a domain name. The host I use and personally had good experiences with is Hostgator and I get my domains at GoDaddy .
Must-Have Tool #3: Build Your Opt-In List I need to stress this out... You Need To Build Your Opt-In List! Owning an opt-in list of highly motivated prospects is crucial to the success of any internet marketing business, no matter what niche it is you are operating in. “The money is in the list” is something you probably heard many times before and it is true so start building one today. But to build a list, you need a good, reliable autoresponder. Now I have 2 resources for that. The first, free, one is GetReponse. It is a great way to start out if you really don’t have the money for a good, quality autoresponder but if you have some spare money left after purchasing a domain and hosting, I Highly Recommend Aweber. They make sure ALL your messages get through (which is pretty important with all the SPAM issues that are going on) and handle all the SPAM complaints for you. This WILL take your internet business to the next level if you use it properly. Also you will need a lead capture page. To see a good lead capture page in action, click here. This a great example of a good lead capture page that is designed to motivate your visitors to take action.
Important Tool #3: Submit Your Articles This is so important for 2 reasons: #1: credibility. People will read your articles and start recognizing you as an authority figure in your niche market. #2: Back links. This is some great stuff… by doing this you will be creating back links to your website automatically that will in terms cause higher search engine rankings(and people will click on these links too). Now, next thing that happens is that other webmasters, looking for new, high quality content, will be looking for new articles to post on their website or even to send out to their list. Look what is happening, this starts to lead a life of it’s own. Soon this one article has created thousands of back links, all coming back to your website causing a flood of targeted traffic all heading your way.
Now, there is an automated solution that can send your articles out with one click ease so you don’t have to do to much yourself except writing the article. It’s called Article Submitter Pro and it does all the heavy work of submitting an article for you. Just write that article and blast it out, ready to send hundreds and potentially thousands of back links to your website. This top affiliate marketer ended his answer by telling me the following: These are just the 4 must-have tools for every affiliate marketing business. Of course there are more, fancy tools to blow your income through the roof but you need to start somewhere and this is really all you need to get started.
