DON'T RE-INVENT THE WHEEL . . . IMPROVE ON
IT
By Terry Dean
Today, instead of just reading an article, I want you to
think of this as more of a heart to heart talk from one marketer to another.
I am going to share some of my thoughts and opinions of what I see going on
in the Internet marketing community. So, forgive me if it appears that at
times I am rambling on throughout today's issue.
I know that what I am going to say is going to upset some of the people
reading this, but it needs to be said anyway. Internet Marketers "on
average" show a serious lack of understanding of basic marketing knowledge
and principles.
They are constantly looking for the new thing...or they are in a quest for
the "Holy Grail" of Web Site Traffic. Every week I hear of the new "Traffic
Generator" that is out there. I have even participated in many of them only
to come away disappointed in the results time after time.
I can tell you how to get more traffic than you will ever need in just a few
words, "Give Away something extremely valuable to your market." Just find
out what people want...come up with a low or no cost way of providing
it...then give it to them. Then, you will have more traffic than you know
what to do with!
This next statement may even shock you more than the one above...
"I personally have learned more about how to make money on the Internet from
Marketing Books and Videos which didn't even deal with the Internet than
from the hundreds of Internet marketing publications and products I have
studied!"
Notice that in the past few weeks or months we have been covering a lot of
business principles such as Unique Selling Positions, Joint Ventures,
Strategy Development, and more. These are weapons that have been taught for
decades...but we just have to learn how to apply them to the internet.
Just because we have found a new marketing medium does not mean we need to
lay aside time tested business strategies for success. What Jay Abraham,
Gary Halbert, Ted Nicholas, and others have taught us throughout the last
few decades still works today.
As a matter of fact, the book "Scientific Advertising" was written in the
early part of this century by Claude Hopkins. It is a classic on developing
advertising that works no matter what medium is being used.
This "Old" Book has been credited as being a factor in the success of some
of the top marketing minds of our time. Many of which actually claim to have
read the book 34 times or more!
During the past few weeks, I have spoken with several people who use the
Internet for one purpose...Testing. Using the Internet, they can test their
products and promotion quicker and cheaper than they ever could have done in
any other format.
When it comes time to roll out though, they go to direct mail. They have
figured out a system that works for them that they know how and enjoy using.
Even if you will never do a direct mail promotion, does that mean that you
can't learn from what the most successful direct mailers have been teaching
us about direct marketing for decades?
Instead of trying to Re-Invent the Marketing Wheel...let's become people who
actually improve on it using the leveraging abilities of the Internet to
maximize our time and effectiveness.
Below are 3 examples of business principles that are true irregardless of
whether you sell online, by direct mail, in magazines, on TV, or just
locally. After the principle, we will cover some ways you can apply these
techniques to Internet Marketing and even improve them online.
1) Unique Selling Position
Every business that wants to become successful has to have a Unique Selling
Position. There has to be something that sets them apart from every other
business in their industry. What makes your web site different from all of
the other ones out there? Is it just a copy? If you don't figure out a way
to make it better than and different from the average site out there, you
are just sinking time and money into a losing proposition.
How does the Internet give us an unfair advantage over marketers of earlier
times? It's simple. We can actually go to a search engine. Type in keywords
and see what the competition is doing! You can visit 20 different
competitors this evening and mark down in a notebook ideas to set your
business apart from all of the others out there. This could have never been
done so quickly and easily without the power of the Internet.
2) Targeting Your Market and Market Research.
The most powerful feature of the Internet is doing market research. For
free, you can visit newsgroups and message boards where your potential
customers are hanging out and actually interact with them by asking
questions, taking notes, and find out exactly what they are looking for.
The real key to copywriting is finding out what people's hot buttons are. If
you had to use the old methods of direct mail to do so, it may have cost you
ten thousand to a million dollars to find out how to write a killer ad for
your market. Now, you can spend a week or two online and get the exact same
result for Free.
3) Joint Ventures
Jay Abraham and Mike Enlow both call Joint Ventures "the fastest, easiest
way on earth to make a fortune...and if I had to choose from one single way
to make money, this is it." Yet, it isn't even mentioned in many Internet
marketing circles.
The reason though that most Internet Marketers could never apply this
technique is that they haven't done the two steps above - Develop a USP and
research their market. Both of those aspects are the building blocks to
setting yourself up as a potential joint venture partner.
During the coming weeks and months we have planned to introduce to the
Internet market information products through joint ventures which will
revolutionize the ways you think about your online business. Many of these
products may even be classics in developing real marketing strategies.
So many Internet marketers need to learn how they can make absolutely any
business successful if they use the right marketing techniques...not just
try to gamble on the new Internet traffic tool.
---------------------
Terry Dean, a 5 year veteran of Internet marketing, will Take
You By The Hand and Show You Exact Results of All the Internet
Marketing Techniques he tests and Uses Every Single Month" Click
here to Find Out More:
http://www.peakconsultinginc.com/nbt.htm
|
