I got this short and to the point e-mail this morning. It came from a recent subscriber to my newsletter http://www.streetsmartmarketer.com/.  I don’t know what this person sells, but I believe it’s a more interesting question to address at a general level than at a specific level.

Here’s how I responded.

If you want to make money, the very first question you need to answer is what are you giving people in return for their money? If you are not offering people something they value and want, nothing else matters.

Once you have something of value for the hungry crowd, then here’s what I’d do:

1. Start collecting e-mail addresses and offer some valuable free information in return.

2. Build a relationship with the people who give you their e-mail addresses. You can do this through a newsletter that is not simply a promotion of your business, but continues to provide the subscriber with useful information.

3. Include occasional advertisements for your great product either with the newsletter, or send them separately to subscribers between issues. The key is a great product or service that people want. To get them to buy all you have got to do is create trust.

Read more articles on internet marketing