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If there is one thing I have learned trying to make money online, it is this: you will succeed if you have your own unique product...

This might be your own e-book or even a tangible product that you think might sell well on the Internet. As you probably know, information is what sells best online. Do YOU have unique information or a very specific area of expertise? Even if you answer "yes", you must also ask yourself: Is there an online market for my product/service? Otherwise, you may be putting forth a lot of time, money, and effort for little gain.

Let's take these one at a time:

1. Find your own product:

I had a hard time with this one. I was not really expert at anything. To me, an "expert" is a person who knows a subject so well that he can teach or publish a book on the subject. There are many so-called "marketing gurus" on the Internet. Most of these guys were just lucky to have the foresight to see the Internet as a place where they could sell products. I wish I had started back in 1995 or 1996. You will notice that most of the "big" names in online marketing started back then. Timing is everything...

Ask yourself: what do you know better than anyone else? What can you offer online that would be of value to a specific group of customers? Can you make things with your hands or with tools? Can you write well? What did you do in the offline world? Can any of this expertise be translated to the Internet? As mentioned above, information is the best-selling online item today. It will probably remain this way for the foreseeable future.

2. Perform a survey:

Hopefully, you already have newsletter subscribers or some sort of opt-in list. If so, you can simply send a survey to each one of them. Make it very simple, just yes or no answers. Ideally, just have them be able to click on one link for "yes", and another link for "no". Try not to ask more than five questions. Keep your language simple. A lot of my newsletter subscribers are not from the United States.

If you are just starting out, you may have to find an ezine that relates to your product or service. Then write to the ezine publisher and tell him what you need. He might let you run your survey in his ezine, charging you his usual ad cost. He might even help you with the formatting. Best of all, he might send it out to each of his subscribers as a single ad. They might think he is offering the survey. They will be much more likely to answer a survey that seems to be coming from their publisher, someone they know and trust.

If you are lucky, you will get enough responses to come to a logical conclusion. You need at least 25(this is very minimum). If you don't get at least this many, try another ezine. Once you have all your responses together, throw out any widely divergent answers.

Here's another way to do the same thing. Start your own ezine and advertise it in one of those "pay for subscribers" places(like newslettersforfree.com). You can pay as low as 0.16/subscriber. If you do this, make sure your description is accurate and interesting. This is BY FAR the fastest way to build your own true double opt-in list. One more thing, be sure to let ListBot or Topica sponsor your newletter. It's only about $100/year, but it's well worth it.

3. Price your product/service:

If you ask how much people would be willing to pay for your products, and most answer in the range of $50-$60, then this is a range you can trust. You must throw out the two guys willing to pay $80 and $100, as well as the three persons who would only pay $25, $30, and $35. With these five divergent opinions, I am assuming you have at least 20 persons willing to pay $50-$60 for your product/service.

4. Design your web page:

Now it's time to think about your web page design. If you are not artistic at all, I would urge you to hire a reasonably priced web site designer. The saying "first impressions are important" is even more important on the Internet. My own sites have been very plain and unexciting, and had that "home-made" look about them. Do yourself a favor and hire a professional when you are ready.

5. Market your product online:

Think how best to do this. It's not just search engines. Look for specific ezines whose subscribers might be interested in your products. For example, if you are offering doll houses for sale(that you make), advertise in dollhouse ezines and dollhouse web sites. You will find your most "likely to buy" customers in these places.