I’ve been reading a lot of hype about internet marketing, on…well, the internet. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that people can make money with a mouse and an alphabet. After all, the www is the Wild Wild West, and there’s nothing wrong with claiming your domain on the cyberfrontier.
It’s just that more of what much of this marketing is mostly about is becoming more apparent the more that I read on. Not that I haven’t had my two decades’ share of television advertisements…what else but a commercial selling you shampoo (and alluding it to be the ultimate secret to a woman’s eternal satisfaction) could best illustrate the corporate marketing game?
You see, I thought that the online game had different rules. My assumption was that because many internet marketers are non-corporate people trying to get by, by bending the rules, they would not resort to the same tactics as the people who want to package happiness in a coke bottle.
But, disappointingly, some of the same rules do apply.
First of all, there’s still no such thing as a free lunch. Even though tons of information is free online, if there’s someone behind that message who’s hoping to make (part of) a living on the net, you’re going to have to hear out the sales pitch. To me, that just takes the fun out of reading a good blog…if I’m constantly thrown a book reference here and a great deal there then I start to see only the dollar signs in the author’s eyes (and wonder if I can afford all these things), when I’d rather listen to their message.
Secondly, the same time-tested tactic—taking advantage of people’s fears—ticks on. Just tonight I was about to sign up for a free book about blogging. The pitch was sounding pretty good, and I was innocently scratching my head, wondering why I had to give out some personal information if it wasn’t going to be used in any devious way…
And then, suddenly, I felt fear.
Why?
Because the guy promising success politely implied that if I don’t follow the steps in his product, my blog will fail.
All of a sudden, “fail” entered my blog awareness. And I’m not talking the widely viewed FAIL Blog here. I mean, this guy who I was beginning to trust to help me out with a free product…just told me that my blog has a chance of falling by the wayside to never be repixelated again.
Huh?
When the fear emerged, I started to thinking…well, what if he’s wrong? What if…there are new ways to blog that no one knows about yet, that no one’s figured out because the social trends haven’t shifted yet. The internet is a pretty dynamic place, and people are pretty dynamic creatures, things could change tomorrow and the whole market could change.
After several more questions, it became clear that this guy was subtly prying on my fear…that he was hoping I would feel so compelled to give him my personal information because I needed his help to resuscitate my going-to-die-if-not-in-following-of-“free”-advice blog, that I stopped the video promo and decided that the best way to succeed is to set out your own goals and follow them through.
There are many ways to sell a product, or to offer a free lunch before selling one.
- One of them is to target desperate people, people who are starving for something to (temporarily) fix their pains, perceived or real. These are desperate buyers, and the market goes crazy for them. Some people even make bank on going after them alone. Think of this method as the fear tactic, or taking advantage of what makes people afraid.
- Another way is to make a good product, and treat prospective buyers as if they’re smart enough to know a good product when they see it, and buy it if they need it.
It’d be hard to tell which is more successful without a fat stack of studies in hand, especially when we are immersed in a consumer consensus reality championing the first method mentioned. But I bet that the second one doesn’t spread fear, or at least foster it.
Can you imagine what our world would be like if television advertisements weren’t consumed at unhealthy proportions (or if we all had TiVo and could skip through them—not to be advertising or anything)?
