Wearing blinkers is a term borrowed from horse racing. They're put on horses to help them focus and avoid distraction - most of us need to do the same with our internet marketing.

1. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
Blinkers are often used in horse racing to keep the horses focused
and on track.
And metaphorically wearing blinkers can help enormously with
your internet marketing.
For a horse, the blinkers stop the view behind and often to the side
so that they can concentrate better on what’s ahead of them.
Which hopefully includes the fast approaching finish line.

2. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
For an internet marketer, it can mean ignoring the million and one
distractions that happen, day in, day out.
Everything from emails, Twitter, Facebook, Skype and all those
other regular distractions that we tell ourselves are all part of our
work…
…through to methods that we’ve either tried and not succeeded
with or that are plainly not our style.

3. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
If you haven’t worked out what your preferred style is, it’s about
time you did so.
Lots of different methods, most of which work for some people but
not others.

4. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
Content marketing.
The slow-but-steady approach to internet marketing that’s been
around on the web as long it’s been in existence and that’s been
available in other media for a lot longer: most recently television,
radio, books & magazines but before that plays, minstrels and
probably even cave paintings. Unless we find a different way of
communicating (personally I think telepathy is quite some time
away but even that would rely on content) then content marketing
is here to stay and I think it should be a decent sized part of your
promotional mix.

5. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
Video marketing.
Still content marketing really, just a different medium but unless
you’re creating slide shows with backing music and maybe
captions then it still needs real content. Historically, moving images
have always come to the forefront. Cinemas allowed content to
reach many more people than theatre or traveling shows.
Television quickly took over from radio for a lot of light
entertainment. Videos on the web are fast becoming the normal
way to get information, even when text would be quicker and
easier. If you’ve ever tried to follow an instructional video about
something like an Excel spreadsheet you’ll know that it seems to
take 2 or 3 minutes to painfully show you how to type in a formula
that could have been given in one copy & paste line. But you still
watched it.

6. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
Paid advertising.
There’s a rule of thumb in direct mail that the cost of an advert will
rise until it at least covers the initial profit you’re likely to make.
Direct mail and direct response TV have known that for a long time
and they’re good at adding in continuity sales and upsells to their
process. That was happening long before upsells on the internet.
It’s by no means unusual for paid advertising to cost an order of
magnitude more than the initial profit you’re likely to make. That’s
good if you’ve got the budget to test for a few months until you get
past break even – always assuming that’s possible.

7. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
It’s a lot less good if you’re just starting out and the sales letter
promised that this source would automatically put you into profit.
Sorry but that’s highly unlikely. Even with cheap ads on places like
Bing and YouTube. The price of ads quickly finds its own level so
unless you’re in at the start then the paid ad platform is likely
already at a level where your ads are highly unlikely to break even.
Sometimes paid ads need a change in mindset from you as well.
For instance, I’m used to getting product buyers or avid readers of
my content on my lists. They’re a completely different type of
person from someone who’s clicked on a banner advert or
responded to a brief squeeze page. The same applies in reverse –
if you use the same techniques with paid product buyers that
you’re successfully using via solo ads or Clixsense, chances are
you’ll not have much response.

8. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
Each of those headings have lots of subdivisions.
For instance, content marketing could be split up into your own
site, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, forums, guest posting,
document shares, free resources, free or paid ebooks, Kindle
books and much more.
The same goes for any other method.

9. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
So unless your blinkers are well and truly in place, chances are
you’ll get distracted and go off in a different direction.
That direction may be more profitable than the one you’re currently
going in. That can and does happen, which is why I suggest that
you allocate maybe 10% to 20% of your internet marketing time
experimenting with new ideas and monitoring the results.

10. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
But most of your time should be spent with the tried and tested
methods that you know bring in reasonably consistent results for
you.
Always assuming you know what those are. If you don’t then it’s
time to set aside a few hours and work it out.
But as soon as you’ve got your direction, put your blinkers on.

11. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
Delete any advertising emails (or even informative ones) that don’t
align with your direction.
Close the tab on any browser windows that don’t fit and that only
serve to distract you.
And put the vast majority of your internet marketing time and effort
into the things that best fit with your personality and your results.

12. Start Wearing Blinkers for Your
Internet Marketing
Keep at it and you’ll be the next success story.
And if you’d like some more help, take a look at my
weekly internet marketing tutorial group.