Today I was confronted (again) by another would be internet marketer about some statements that I have made many times and in many places on the web. I have been consistent on this issue for as long as I can remember, and I am honestly puzzled that so many people are adamant in their opposition to the idea. Here’s the premise: Most forums, traffic exchanges, safelists, and similar forms of marketing are useless due to the fact that all of the other members are only viewing your website, reading your mail, answering your posts, etc, just to get you to do the same. Well, as far as I know, that statement is the absolute truth. My question is why would that bother you? These people spend money and purchase products just like everyone else, and if your pitch is good and you distinguish yourself from the competition you will get to reap the benefits. But folks who have bought in to this idea (and I mean no offense) don’t agree. Their reasoning is that on a given traffic exchange for example, there might be hundreds of the same affiliate pages being shown by many different people. Or in a forum they might be faced with several others that are trying to harvest potential customers or affiliates. I understand, I really do – but the point is that no matter where or how you advertise there is going to be a lot of competition. Have any of you ever tried bulk mailers for example? How about the local newspaper classifieds? If you live in a highly populated area the competition in the used car classifieds is huge. So what does this all mean and where am I going with it? How about this – If I sell fruit, and you sell motorcycles, why wouldn’t we be potential customers for each other? We can both happily advertise on the same traffic exchange and possibly do some business with each other. Now for the opposite end of the spectrum. You are trying to recruit for your affiliate program. So are a hundred other people. Think that makes it a waste of time? Not so. I have seen many statements over the years on this but suffice to say that it takes many views of any given page to get the average person to take action. Why wouldn’t you want your page in the mix? And this is not even considering the fact that you should be making your product or opportunity stand out amongst the others. Even if you have no competition at all you will still need to get the word out about your business. I think one of the things that causes a lot of this debate is that people often feel that once the business they are promoting starts to become a little successful, the “amateur” or “beginner’s” marketing techniques are no longer valid for some reason. But why not? If you have done the proper work, and have built a good foundation for your business, it should stand out amongst all the other guys even better. No need to radically change your entire marketing program, especially if it has started working for you. And please don’t email me and say that I have implied that you should not add new marketing techniques and promotional avenues to your marketing plan. I think you should always be on the lookout to add to what you have already. In fact if you don’t you will most likely not have as much success. But there are millions of people online every day that you can market to absolutely free with a little effort, and that fact has a lot of historical significance because it has never been easier to start or publicize a business than it is right now. Why not use what is right there in front of you? If you really want to succeed with your online business, you will do everything you can to get the largest number of eyes possible on your advertising. It is a lot of work, there is no doubt about it, but that is to be expected. Please be realistic about starting a business no matter if it is online or off. One last thing – if you have all the business you can handle (and if you did you most likely would not be reading this), then keep doing things your way and better yet share your ideas with the membership here at WAHH. Related articles by Zemanta
 |
