unintuitive

I have been attempting to break into the world of internet marketing for approximately two years. My initial attempts in 2005 were haphazard at best; despite my attempts, I utterly failed to capitalize on the growing trend of online marketing. I eventually gave up so that I could focus on a real-world sales job with Xerox. While I was able to sell more than $115,000 of product in my short tenure as a sales agent, I was never really satisfied with the offline sales process.

The entire professional sales process, a modern-day hunter/gatherer lifestyle of chasing prospects and whittling them down to a closed sale, seemed so archaic to me. I was doing things the same way salespeople did in the 1950’s with a few modern conveniences. I experienced a creeping realization that I was in a dying profession.

I recently took advantage of the opportunity to re-enter the world of internet sales. A lot had changed since 2005, and I had a great deal of learning to do. It used to be that, as long as you knew how to do it, you could slap together an advertising campaign in a couple minutes and have a reasonable shot at profitability. This is no longer the case. Internet marketing takes considerable research, patience, and persistence.

And it’s worth the investment: the online market is potentially the biggest market the world has ever seen, and will most likely experience phenomenal growth in the future as more businesses and developing nations enter the fray.

Now, to the point of this post: I just checked my stats from my most recent advertising campaign and experienced quite a shock.

It’s profitable. It’s not much. I’ve spent $13.00 to make $50.00 for a profit of $37.00. I’m not going to set the world on fire after earning $37.00 - but it’s certainly validating to know that there has been a point to my effort.