Internet marketing is just like any other type of marketing in that you have to get your offer in front of a lot of people. Of course, a major advantage of online marketing is that you can get your offer in front of a large audience on a very small advertising budget.

Why is it, though, that you need to show your product or service to a lot of people? The reason is because the vast majority of them will say "no thank you" (or worse) to your offer. And that's not because there's something wrong with your product or service, the way you presented it, or even with you. The fact is, only a small percentage of consumers are going to say yes to your offer. The good news is that you only need a small percentage to make a whole lot of money!

Different industries' statistics vary, but typical averages work like this:

* 1 out of 12 people in the general population becomes a suspect. (A suspect is someone who thinks they might be interested)

* 1 out of 7 suspects becomes a prospect. (A prospect is someone who definitely is interested, but hasn't decided to buy yet or who to buy from)

* 1 out of 4 prospects becomes a customer (I hope you know what a customer is)

You've probably heard that the average response rate on a direct mail campaign (in the physical world) is 1 to 3%. This means that for every one hundred people who got the direct mail piece (whether it's a flyer, postcard, or brochure), 1 to 3 people responded. This doesn't mean they bought anything. It just says they made contact with the seller in some way. It's up to the seller to turn these prospects into customers.

The bottom line is -- if you're marketing to the general population, you need to get your information in front of about 350 people to get an order. That means 349 no's for every yes. Kind of depressing, huh?

Well don't give up the ship, because that's where target marketing comes in. If you're presenting your offer to your target market, then you're going directly to the suspects. And the numbers at that level look a whole lot better. Now we're talking 27 no's for every yes. Still not exactly a reason to jump for joy, is it?

And that's precisely why I'm writing this article. Because the plain truth of internet marketing (or any marketing) is that in order to be successful you're going to have to get a lot of no's. So don't dwell so much on why you're getting the no's, but realize that you want to get them because they're leading you towards the yes's.

I don't mean to imply here that it's not important to continually improve your product/service and your presentation of it, because it is. Just keep in mind that no matter how much you fine tune your business, you're still going to get "no's".

You need to change your mindset, by saying "YES" to the "no's". Try looking at it like this: If you make $27 on every sale and you have to get 27 "no's" for every "yes", then each "no" is worth a dollar to you! So go out there and get those "no's", because for every one that you get, you're that much closer to a "YES!"

Lisa Henry of Internet Magic has been successfully marketing on the web for the last 1 1/2 years. Visit http://www.internetmagic.nu for free and low-cost web tools and marketing resources. Enter the drawing for a free submission of your site to 900+ search engines and directories.