Top 2 Internet Marketing Mistakes I Made That’s Wasting My Time

Written by admin on March 24, 2009 – 6:04 pm -

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I get a few people asking me every month, “What Internet Marketing Mistakes have you made and how did you fix them?” Without a doubt the top 2 Internet mrketing mistakes I made were:

Not planning, and
Rushing

Let’s explore them in detail.

Internet Marketing Mistake #1: Not Planning

One of the reasons I am so busy now (outside of helping my clients) is that I am cleaning up a mess…it’s a good mess though.

You see, when I started marketing online many years ago I bought a lot of stuff.

A few of those things were scripts that I could install on my site. Then I installed another and another and another. After 3-years of doing this I stopped. All of these scripts are good! They are still running today without any problems.

However, about 2 years ago, I purchased another script that would serve as my “hub” for everything I do. The problem is I have so many products under all of these scripts that I have to move them. And this is not fun!

Watch how this plays out so you can see and feel my pain.

Identify all the products and pricing
Identify all of the download pages (they are protected by the scripts)
Begin developing a plan to shift the products to the new system
Begin to set up the new system with one product
Transfer the product to the new system domain (I may keep it where it is and set up a remote membership/download page. This would save me a ton of time but interfere with my current order processing.)
Run a test to ensure each product download page can be accessed
If something goes wrong troubleshoot.
Add the tracking code to the sales page to ensure affiliates get credited properly
Change the order links on the sales page to the new system order links
Run another test to verify everything is working again
Move on to the next product

What’s funny is that I have some products that have an affiliate program and others that don’t. Moving them is a big headache and it’s all because I did not plan. On average, it takes me about 3-4 hours to complete one product.

Why so long? It’s to make sure that nothing is inoperable before everything goes up in the new system.

Internet Marketing Mistake #2: Rushing

Not only did I not have a plan but I rushed into everything. For example, I got a script that allowed me to protect my download pages and products. It worked well but I was limited.

Then I purchased an affiliate program that did not integrate with the download script. So, I had two different pages for the same product because I had different programs.

Then I decided to get a membership script, which was good too! That helped me to manage all of my products. However, I ended up creating another directory that was password protected using this new software.

Looking back I just had to kick myself for rushing into these purchasing decisions. While each of them has served me well it’s too much work managing them.

I bet if you looked back on your purchasing decisions you rushed into a few of them because: