The number one concern for Internet sales is your marketing list -- in other words, your audience.

But...but...but...you're saying, products for sales is a must too, however, if your list is nonexistent, small or loosely targeted, having a product isn't going to help much. There just will not be any success.

Yes, I know this is confusing. You need a product to attract. By the way, I am using product interchangeably to mean services too.

This almost feels like the chicken and the egg story - which came first. So, what do you do first?

You can't create or increase a mailing list without a "what's in it for them to be attracted to you for."

Now I'm not talking about buying lists but about opt-in focused lists.

Step 1: Know what your target market (audience same thing) wants and they already have their wallet open and ready to buy.

Step 2: Create a product to answer that want and match their wallet. Create a product that contains 100% they can know everything about as a small segment of that want.

Step 3: Now that you have 100% of that pie. Cut off a small piece of pie -- about 10%. Make that 10% into a 100% everything of information for that piece. Create a 100% product of this 10% that you broke off.

Step 4: Cut 25% of that 100% of that 10% (say this out loud if you didn't get it) and designate that as freebie information. Then designate 50% for a product to sell and the other 25% for consulting or a service that costs them a higher price. An alternative is to create a product with the total 75% and charge them a higher price.

This strategy is one that is not wide spread and a well-kept secret by the InfoGurus. It is even a guarded secret, and guess what, I've just broken their secret. I am an InfoGuru and I don't mind sharing this model. It is the missing aerial view that no one seems to want to write about -- unless, of course, it's in a product that sells for big dollars.

Catherine Franz, a Certified Professional Marketing & Writing Coach, specializes in product development, Internet writing and marketing, nonfiction, training. Newsletters and articles available at: http://www.abundancecenter.com blog: http://abundance.blogs.com