The best piece of advice I was ever given was that I should study what successful people are doing and copy them.  More specifically, find out what they are doing that others AREN’T.  In other words, what sets them apart from the crowd.

Here are five things I’ve observed that we all may already know.  But successful marketers don’t just “know” these things, they DO them …

1.  Prize Their List

Alright, I promise I’m not going to say “The money’s in the list”. (Although I should, because it’s absolutely true )

A large list of email subscribers is the #1 asset you can have in your online business. That’s true regardless of your niche, your product, and your own particular style. The list rules!

So successful marketers prize their list above everything else. And they spend time, money and effort to:

• Build It – they look for every opportunity to get people to opt in.
• Cultivate It – they build an ongoing relationship with their subscribers. They provide great value, and build trust.
• Protect It – they never compromise their subscribers privacy, they don’t burn their list out by over promotion, and they don’t ever put a deal above their relationship with subscribers.

2. Create Their Own Products

Affiliate marketing can be a great source of revenue, but very few of the top eschalon of marketers rely on AM exclusively. Most (if not all) of the superaffiliates, like every other successful online marketer, have their own products to sell.

Let me show you some quick math so you really understand:

Let’s say you have a list of 10,000 subscribers and you promote a product that you are an affiliate for that makes you a commission of $20. From your list you manage to generate a 1% conversion rate (respectable). That’s 100 sales amounting to $2000. You have to be careful about how many offers like this you promote in a given month (we go back to point 1 above!)

Now look at this. Let’s imagine the product you are promoting is your own. It sells for $40, of which you pay out 50% in commissions. In addition to mailing the offer out to your own list (100 sales x $40 – no commission to pay = $4000), you also recruit 100 affiliates (your own sales force) with subscriber lists ranging from a few hundred to 50,000. Let’s say they have a combined promotion power of 250,000 people (conservative). Using the same conversion rates as before, you make another $50,000 … 250,000 x 1% conversion = 2500 x $20 profit after commissions are paid.

This math assumes a single campaign, but the product is likely to continue to sell and provide you with an ongoing income over time.

As you can see, selling other people’s products can create a good living … but selling your own product can create wealth. At the end of the day the goal is not trading one boss for another, but to be your own boss. This is what creating your own products will do for you.

3. Identify Activities That Really Matter

The question every entrepeneur (whether online or offline) needs to continually ask themselves is “Which activities fetch the greatest return of benefit for the effort I personally put into them?” This leads to a second question: “Which other activities can be delegated or outsourced to others?”

Unsuccessful marketers very often are not lazy; they may even be the hardest working. But as the old saying goes, you needs to “work smarter, not harder!”

Where do your strengths lie? Concentrate on those areas, and either ignore or outsource the other areas.

4. Network

The importance of building strategic friendships with other marketers cannot be emphasized enough. (It’s also a source of great satisfaction and joy … “the best things in life are not things!” )

Go back to our affiliate sales force example in point 2 above. This is just one way that demonstrates the power of what a team can achieve. Co-operating with just one JV Partner can exponentially multiply your results.

It’s no coincidence that you so often see the top marketers working with other big shakers on a regular basis. They have formed strategic partnerships. Some of these were formed years ago when their names were unknown – they got to where they are by working together.

5. Persevere

The last key is perhaps the least glamorous, but the most reliable predictor of online success. Perseverance. Sometimes internet marketing can feel like “two steps forward, one step back”. There are exciting moments and great disappointments. You just have to keep going.

Stay focused. Don’t fall for the trap of switching tack all the time, from one scheme to another. Apply the basic principles and just keep pressing on.

This industry is still in its relatively early days. The biggest success stories are still to be written. YOU could be one of them. If you are, you will have paid attention to these 5 things that all successful internet marketers know and do.

Ross