My take on Internet Marketing

Went for a rather refreshing preview seminar on Internet Marketing today conducted by Fabian Lim from Asia Internet Academy, and indeed I gained new insights into the world of top affiliate/internet marketeers. Had always been rather fascinated by how some people could seemingly generate obscene amount of money in a extremely short period of time. A few good examples of such people are:

Name Networth Age
Jeff Bezos of Amazon $5.74 Billion 35 yr
Pierry Omidyar of eBay $3.69 Billion 32 yr
David Filo of Yahoo! $3.12 Billion 33 yr

They created their virtual empire entirely out of nothing, and created such immense wealth that most people would find unfanthomable. The speaker also explained why the Internet had such immense potential for growth, and why people should stake their claim of this huge pie:

Total Population: 6.4 Billion
Total Internet usage: 1.1 Billion
Asia Internet usage: 380 Million
Europe Internet usage: 311 Million
North America: 231 Million - courtesy of World Internet Stats

In particular, Asia's growth has been phenomenal, and such growth has also translated into increased online spending. We are now living in the Infomation age, where knowledge is money. Gone are the days where one can hold a job till retiring at 65 and receiving a large remuneration package. Many Singaporeans I know are barely ekeing out a living - many of them well advanced in age. My heart extends to those who slog for hours and hours on end, but never seeing an escape route from their so-called 'Rat Race'. I can only hope that one day these people will understand that their life will not change UNLESS they make the first move to change it.

Back to the workshop I attended, I decided to share some nuggets of advice that I believe are very valuable. To be successful (not only online), there is 2 main things one has to do:

1) Create VALUE
2) Be DIFFERENT

Creating Value - In every business, the main question the owner will ask himself is "How can I create value for my customers?" For some, the answer would be to have loyalty reward programs; redemption points; lucky draws even. For the online world, it could mean free eBooks, lessons, tips, advice, newsletters etc. There is a saying that goes - Price is what one pays; Value is what one gets. Once you create a product at a price where many people are willing to pay for, believing that it is worth the money, you have a winning formula.

Being Different - Think about this point for a moment. In today's fast moving world, out attention is being demanded for by so many mediums of advertisements. In buses, in trains, at shopping centres, flyers, brochures, etc. With so many people advertising their products, how can one really stand out? The answer, is simply to dare to be different. A good example of such a person is Seth Godin. Visit his website, and you will know why he is different from many other entrepreneurs out there. Another well-known website (but maybe not well-liked) is RichJerk. Unlike many other online programs out there, the creator (some anonymous guy called RJ) distintly differentiated himself by being unique. (in this sense, rather vulgar) But in the online world, any publicity is GOOD publicity. It creates attention, which in turn creates TRAFFIC. And traffic, as one might agree, is a key element to an internet marketer. Another very interesting success story I read recently was MillionDollarHomepage, created by some guy called Alex Tew. His idea was unique, and most importantly, it was different. He managed to sell all 1,000,000 pixels for over US$1mil. And the best thing is he took less than a year to accomplish this.

With such examples and case studies, the speaker has indeed illustrated the gargantuan potential of the Internet. Will likely be exploring this area in depth in the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned for more juicy updates.