Posts Tagged ‘internet marketers’
As part of an effort to be of more of service to my subscribers, I've decided to start sending out more informational content — hopefully on a semi-regular basis.
Weekly, maybe? We'll see.
The length and quality of the writing, as well as of the information, may vary considerably. It will depend on what else (and how much) is going on with me, but I'll simply postpone and omit if I feel it's necessary.
So … this may eventually become a full-blown marketing newsletter. But for the immediate future, I expect it to be fairly short and to-the-point articles about various aspects of online marketing (and perhaps offline, too, occasionally).
My subscribers will find resources that pertain to the discussion (when available and when I feel comfortable recommending them) at the end of these soliloquies. (Soliloquies? Fancy word, yeah?) I will be putting these resources at the end so as to not interrupt the flow.
Some of this information (and the aforementioned resources) may prove to be "old hat" to some of my subscribers. Since I don't have a very complete picture about how much or how little experience various folks have, I have to go with the basics at least some of the time, right?
But if you are, or become, a subscriber and are patient with me. I know, sooner or later, I'll get around to providing some information that even the most seasoned marketer will find extremely valuable. Just don't expect it every time out.
Okay?
This will be for my subscribers ONLY and will not be published here, at AWeber, or elsewhere.
So if you haven't signed up yet, please do so and watch for my next email, most likely in about 12 hours or so, in which I will begin by discussing …
Don't you just love cliff-hangers? LOL.
To your continuing success!,
Richard D. Farley / MythoSpheres Development
For quite a while now I've been among those warning that the wild-wild-West days of internet marketing were drawing to a close.
With Google's recent Panda updates, I am feeling somewhat vindicated.
The Panda updates have hit many IM sites very hard.
Of course, a lot more than Panda has been going on lately:
- AdWords has canceled the PPC accounts of thousands;
- PayPal has closed many IM-ers' accounts;
- Other payment processors are about to disallow IM vendors;
- Clickbank has recently de-listed hundreds of IM products;
- YouTube has dumped thousands of make-money-online videos;
- Amazon has pretty much ended PLR ebooks being sold on Kindle;
- Sales of IM-related products are down, refunds are up.
Am I okay with all these changes? Not exactly. But I do understand that this is what happens when some "opportunists" misbehave.
It is this way in all walks of society it seems. Because some abuse the system, everyone has to pay the price. It's not fair. It's not just. But it is the way things are.
The only thing we "good guys" can do about it is to work that much harder and hold ourselves to higher and higher standards.
As the old saying goes, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going."
So . . . are you ready to offer more value to real people? Are you ready to care even more about the quality of what you teach, what you sell, and about the quality of your web sites, pages and posts?
No? Then rest in peace with the dinosaurs. They couldn't adapt either.
Yes? Then welcome to the post-Panda, post-wild-wild-West internet marketing world. Time for everyone to grow up.
Okay, I have about a million irons in the fire right now, and my mother just recently went into a nursing home and, well, let me just say that it’s been an enormously time-consuming affair as well…
So I guess what I’m saying is that everything’s been getting in the way, lately, of me saying what I wanted to say, or as soon as I intended to say it. So let me apologize in advance for any omissions or mistakes and just get on with it and say it (I promise when I have time, I’ll come back and correct or add to things later if needed).
First off, I firmly believe that the days of easy money by hook and crook on the internet are drawing to a close and that many of this type of marketer are about to run into a huge brick wall, and I’m about to tell you just a couple of reasons why (there are many).
But before I do that, as previously promised, let me quickly list just some of what we all can do in terms of building our reputations as marketers with integrity, and at the close, I’ll give you my take on why all of this is so very important to understand, and especially now:
A few steps toward building the reputation:
- Be transparent with our customers about the fact that it is impossible for us to know what their needs may be and make it crystal clear in our communications who our intended target for any given communication is;
- Encourage two-way communication, via email or Skype or otherwise, or by using polls and surveys if nothing else;
- Disclose all potential conflicts of interest, i.e., if we, or members of our family, or our friends or others we do frequent business with, stand to profit in any way by the sale of a product, a recommendation, any advice we offer, etc., we have an obligation to let our customers know that, and not just in our terms of service, but in our ongoing communications. (The whole conflict of interest concern virtually disappeared in recent years, but I’m betting it’s going to make a big come back sometime soon — and quite possibly beyond anything the FCC or any other government agency may require; in other words, many consumers are getting increasingly sick of being suckered and misled and many are becoming increasingly sophisticated as well.)
- When possible, educate our customers and suggest resources and opportunities for them to educate themselves. When it’s not possible, encourage them to assess their own knowledge, skills, experience, or situation — personal or professional — so that they may better determine whether or not what we have to offer is appropriate to their needs; and,
- Be sure we are creating and promoting only the best products we know to be available. Or if that is not the case, be absolutely clear as to why we are promoting this particular product or service if it is not the best we know to be available, i.e., best value for the money, product is better supported, better documented, has greater potential for the future, is more compatible, is better for newbies, is more aesthetically pleasing or attractive, etc.
On the last point, I want to say a little more.
Of course I work for my own company and make these decisions myself. Those who work for “the other guy” and are promoting that company’s products may find this more difficult, but it is of utmost importance to promote only the best products we know to be available.
If we truly believe in the benefits of a product, then there is nothing dishonest about telling our customers this and our sincerity and enthusiasm and integrity will show through — all great selling points. We will be more successful, and we will sleep well at night. But if we don’t believe very much in a product we’re promoting and try to fake it, not only are we not serving our customers, we are not being true to ourselves.
If you are selling a product or service you don’t believe in, my advice is to get out as soon as you can. The world is full of better opportunities.
Why it matters, and why more now than ever:
Finally, as promised, why do I believe it is so important to understand this and that there has never been a better time to understand it than now?
The reasons are the most important points of these last few posts:
One way or another, social media represents (among other things) an attempt on the part of increasingly sophisticated consumers to move back to the more personal “word of mouth” approach to discovering valuable information, entertainment, products, services, etc. Marketers are essentially mucking this up, and not just the black hatters, and I guarantee consumers will simply keep fighting back, harder and harder in the coming years.
Most people in my experience really do not prefer doing business anonymously and without recommendation from other individuals they have grown to trust (e.g., via a search engine, some random stranger’s link on a forum, etc.); it is just that, until recently, that was one of the better ways of locating value and information on the internet.
Human nature is what it is, and most of the history of marketing, offline as well as online, suggests that most consumers will continue to strive toward a means by which to establish and maintain the more personal “word of mouth” approach.
The end may not be here yet, but the wild west days of internet marketing are diminishing, and we are seeing a return, or at least a longing on the part of consumers to return, to the paradigm of the old, local shopkeeper everybody knew and trusted.
Marketers who understand this can be one of those trusted sources if we go about our business now in the right manner.
Just as importantly, more importantly even, it is good for us, as human beings, individually and collectively, not to take advantage of one another or act in ways that hurt others or benefit only ourselves, or in other ways that are out of harmony with our higher natures.
Nearly all of us have, at one time or another, fallen into the trap of believing we can fool ourselves or others with rationalizations, and sometimes we can for a while, but there is always a severe price to pay because our emotional make-up, our unconscious, or conscience if you will, isn’t fooled by such rationalizations. The long experience of humanity strongly suggests that such attempts to “get away with” practices we do not believe in, whether or not they adversely affect our business, will almost certainly have adverse effects on our health, our outlook on life, our self-esteem, our relationships with others and our spirits.
Of course, as marketers, and more simply, just as human beings — excepting perhaps a cloistered, ascetic monk or two — we will all continue to make mistakes in judgment, or otherwise, from time to time.
When that happens, or when we become aware that it is happening, we should apologize and make reparations if appropriate. Then we should correct course and allow ourselves to move on.
Because it is always better in the long run to understand and act increasingly in accordance with our values and our emotions than it is to listen to intellectualizations that are designed to simply help us make more money.
And though I hate to end this post so abruptly, and with so little polish, I’m out of time, so that’s it for now. Rushed as this was, I hope you found something here worthwhile. I’ll try to add more thoughts and resources when my life smooths out a bit. Thanks for visiting, and sign up to my list if you like.
To your success!,
Richard D. Farley / MythoSpheres Development
Hi. Yes — all sorts of unexpected troubles — but I’m back.
I want to begin by letting you know that since my initial foray into this subject (Is Honest Marketing An Oxymoron?), I’ve done a lot of listening, a lot of reading and a fair bit of thinking. And I believe I’ve not only reminded myself of some various understandings I’d nearly forgotten, but have become aware of a few new nuances as well.
Now, with your permission, I’d like to share some of it with you.
So let’s dive right in:
What is all this outcry about a lack of honesty in internet marketing anyway? What’s it about? Why do so many marketers say they are being honest while so many consumers say they are not? Are internet marketers simply crooks? Are consumers simply whiners with unrealistic expectations?
Well, there’s no doubt in my mind that the above posits explain some of it, i.e., some marketers are crooks and some consumers are never satisfied. But as I suggested in a recent post, maybe honesty per se isn’t what the complaints are really all about.
Hopefully I established to your satisfaction in my ‘Dream On‘ post that what people actually buy is a feeling, not a product or service. So if you accept that that is true, then what is it about selling a feeling that can be construed as honest or dishonest?
But wait, rather than address that question directly, let me encourage you to draw your own conclusion as I meander toward some understandings that I hope all, or most, of us can agree on.
Let me begin by establishing a few facts:
First fact — we are all marketers. It’s true. Pretty much every person on the planet is a marketer in one sense or another. When you flirt, you are marketing yourself. When you go out on a first date, when you go on a job interview, when you ask someone to marry you, even when you try to convince someone else that your religious beliefs are where it’s really at — in one sense or another, that is all marketing.
In all cases you are promoting something. You’re promoting yourself or your sex appeal or your personality or your skills and can-do attitude, or maybe even what you consider to be the ultimate cosmic truth.
And in all cases, are you convinced you are being 100% honest?
When you flirt, do you make sure the person you’re flirting with knows that sometimes you can be a clueless klutz?
When you go out on a first date, do you make sure the person you’re dating knows your last relationship ended badly because you got a little too selfish? Or because you exhibited very poor judgment by letting yourself get into a wrong-for-you relationship in the first place?
And when you go on a job interview, do you tell the interviewer about all the things you can’t do well and have failed at?
And how about we just wisely omit any queries regarding the marriage and religious examples for now… ?
The point is, unless you’re a very unusual and socially dysfunctional person, I would guess the answer to all of the above questions (or some similar set of questions in the same spirit that would be more appropriate to you) is “No,” and if that’s the case, are you still convinced you are being 100% honest?
Hmm…
Okay, then, second fact — we’re all dishonest marketers…
Whoa!, now wait a second, sometimes our behavior is designed to spare the feelings of others or to avoid conflict or avoid doing harm to others or ourselves, and after all we’re just “putting our best foot forward” and … even for the sticklers, isn’t it a little much to find fault with that? And besides, there’s a big difference between being dishonest and withholding certain information, right?
Well, yes and no. It does depend on the context. How integral is the information? Does the information you are withholding better define what you are marketing than the information you are disclosing? Or another way to put it, in terms of flirting: are you a clueless klutz 2% of the time or 98% of the time?
If it’s 98% of the time, that is integral information, my friend (if you’ve ever been on a date with someone who is a clueless klutz 98% of the time, you know this!), and if you are withholding that kind of information, you are not marketing with very much integrity. Ah, but if it’s only 2%, well I think we might just let that go… that is, as long as you’re cool and slinky and sexy the rest of the time…
;*)
So what I’m getting at — what I said before, is that honest marketing may actually be the wrong terminology; what customers want is marketing with integrity.
So what does that mean, exactly?
Is my meandering starting to make sense?
If you think so, then this is one of the distinctions, or tenets if you will, of marketing with integrity: consumers — all of us really — expect the promotional information divulged about a product or service to better define that product or service, by far, than any information that is not being divulged.
But that’s just one of the distinctions.
As I see it, there are actually four basic distinctions that define marketing with integrity:
- you have made a sincere attempt to inform yourself about the product or service before recommending and promoting it;
- what is revealed in your promotional material is essentially true to the best of your knowledge;
- what is being said in your promotions (already mentioned) better defines the product or service, by far, than what is not being said;
- you are, in good faith and to the best of your understanding, promoting to your customers only those products and services you know to be appropriate to their needs.
Customers really are not expecting some rigid, pedantic standard of honesty; well, most of them aren’t. You are after all trying to sell something, and customers know this and even, on some level, want to be sold. Nevertheless, if you want to build a reputation for being “honest” — or better, being a marketer with integrity — the bar is still fairly high.
What most of your customers really want is to know that a), you actually know what you are selling; b), you are being essentially truthful about what you know; c), you are not withholding vital, game-changing information that they, as potential buyers, need to know to make an appropriate decision; and d), you are not using your selling skills and strategies to sell them trash or something completely inappropriate to their needs.
Most of this is completely within your ability and under your control, so much of it is really up to you. It takes some effort and can be time- and energy-consuming sometimes, but you want to do this work to build your reputation and be of real service to your customers. It is what anyone who is in this or any other business for the long term should be trying to do.
So… let’s assume we all want that reputation, and so we can and do inform ourselves about the products and services we’re selling, and we do speak the essential truth that best defines those products and services, and we don’t sell trash…
(I hope I am correct in assuming no one who has read this far wants to sell trash. I will assume this as my conviction is that most of those guys wouldn’t take the time to read a post of this length, and certainly not on this subject.)
So… inform self, speak essential truth that best defines, and no trash… But wait, that still leaves the inappropriate-to-their-needs portion, and that is a tall order.
How do you know that what you are selling is appropriate to any particular customer’s needs? Well, you really don’t. To some extent, you can try to get to know your customers, but it’s unlikely you can get to know them all — especially as an internet marketer.
So as internet marketers, since it is impossible to know what all our customers’ needs are, we’re all doomed to sell with a deficient degree of integrity even if we’d prefer to do better, right?
Right. Er, no. Not right. Not exactly.
There are some essential things we all can do — even as internet marketers with massive lists — to establish and maintain a high degree of integrity in our marketing practices.
I’ll talk about some of them in my next post.
I also hope to talk about why it is all important that you understand these distinctions and why there has never been a better time to understand them than now.
Thank you for your attention, and I hope you’ll consider signing up to my list before you go.
To your success!,
Richard D. Farley
Now that the dust has begun to settle, I thought it might be appropriate to offer an opinion about Mike Filsaime’s AffiliateJump.
First things first. This post is not about promoting AffiliateJump. Nor is it about trashing Mike. (I won't name names, but there is actually another marketer out there who has also reviewed AffiliateJump, is misrepresenting a few things, and is being very unfair to Mike.) I simply bought into the program and this is my honest assessment.
Before I convey that assessment though, for those who may not know what AffiliateJump is, let me begin with a little background:
CPA, or Cost Per Action, marketing has been gaining momentum lately. Perhaps for good reason — after all, CPA is all about generating leads (freely submitted contact information from potential customers) and offers you the chance to make money, significant money, from a single customer. Some CPA offers pay as much as $200 when a customer signs up.
Further, you don't actually have to sell the customer anything. You simply send them a link.
Many Internet marketers are promoting CPA these days, and certainly some are making some serious money.
But the problem for many has been how to get accepted by the CPA networks. This has proven difficult for some as many of the networks require, among other things, a proven track record and a demonstrated ability to generate traffic, certainly two requirements newbies, and even some more experienced marketers, can have difficulty with. Additionally, there is the problem of choosing which offers to promote as well as how to promote them.
Mike Filsaime's AffiliateJump promises a turnkey workaround for these challenges. For example, you don't have to be accepted by the CPA networks. By simply buying into AffiliateJump, you are guaranteed to be "accepted" automatically.
Through AffiliateJump, your offers will be available to you through an easy-to-use interface, and you can build "websites" to promote those offers in just a few minutes, or actually, even seconds if you're not too particular. Not only that, but you don't have to buy a domain name to do it. That's all taken care of for you.
Then all you do is promote these "websites."
Sounds great, doesn't it? Well, yes and no.
While the folks at AffiliateJump seem to be working on some of the shortcomings, as of this writing there are definitely some problems. For one, the "websites" — or actually pages — that AffiliateJump allows you to create will all be located at similar domains (there are several available, but still a fairly limited choice). For another, the domain names, being limited, will not necessarily have much to do with the names of the products you'll be promoting, which means you could have a more difficult time driving traffic to your site.
You are given a choice, and with care you can get somewhat close in some cases, but certainly not all, and the closer the domain name comes to the name of the product or service that is being promoted, generally the better. Search engines seem to like it much better when the domain name and the content somewhat agree.
Another drawback, but another thing the folks at AffiliateJump claim to be working on improving, is that the pages generated are extremely similar, both in appearance and content (they don't have to be exactly the same, there are some customizations available, but they are very limited as of this writing).
Here are a couple of examples:
If your browser doesn't support frames and you would like to view the example page, Click Here, then use your browser's Back button to return to this review.
If your browser doesn't support frames and you would like to view the example page, Click Here, then use your browser's Back button to return to this review.
While the pages are attractive enough, it means all the other AffiliateJump members will be promoting pages that may be identical to, or vary only in minor respects from, the ones you are promoting, and it means the sites will look very similar to the search engines. Very similar, as opposed to identical, might not be a fatal drawback, but keep in mind that many of those very similar pages are likely to be hosted at the exact same domain name. So, you know, if that's not fatal either, it's certainly not good.
It could be a major problem, in fact, in terms of attracting visitors to your pages. While a Google rep very recently said Google does not actually penalize duplicate content, he also explained that the effect is often the same, and it is a truism in internet marketing at this point that the search engines don't like duplicate content, for whatever rhyme or reason. So if, say, a hundred, or a thousand pages all look extremely similar, it is likely only a few will get any attention from the search engines and the rest will be left out — and given Murphy's law, probably yours, and that would mean no search-engine-generated visitors to your offers. Of course you could drive traffic through advertising, but keep in mind that for every product or service offered, you'll be competing with every other AffiliateJump member for the exact same offers.
Another drawback is the price. To be able to create 100 offers, you'll pay. At the time I signed up, it cost $200 for the initial setup fee (refundable, but only after you have earned $1000 in commissions) and then $99.95 a month thereafter. There were cheaper options, but hardly worth having in my opinion, as they were so limited in terms of the number of pages you were allowed to set up and promote. Additionally, there are some of my long-time internet marketing acquaintances who are, rightly or not, outraged that anyone should be asked to pay for the opportunity to promote the offers of a CPA network in any case, and while AffiliateJump may yet prove itself very worthwhile for some, or in one sense or another, they certainly do have a point.
It seems odd that these matters were not given more thought from the start, especially considering Mike Filsaime's experience. It would be tempting for a cynic (or realist?) to surmise that AffiliateJump has been designed to make a lot of money for Mike, rather than having been designed with any real concern for creating any real opportunities for its members; however, as I said at the outset, I'm not about trashing Mike here, and also as mentioned before, there does seem to be a sincere effort on at AffiliateJump to address many of these issues. Recently, they have also been adding some training videos.
I'm not prepared here and now to pass a final judgment, and I am going to reserve the right to recommend and promote AffiliateJump at some point in the future if things improve enough; however, some of my continued evaluation will depend on how long I decide to remain a member, and in conclusion, newbies, and less-experienced marketers — who are clearly the primary target customer base for AffiliateJump — are, in my opinion, the ones least likely to be able to profit from AffiliateJump, so I'd warn most to stay away, at least as it stands now.
Meanwhile, if you are truly interested in CPA marketing, which admittedly can be highly lucrative, I'd like to suggest something you may find more worthwhile.
To receive an email about my recommendation, and a full explanation as to why I recommend it, please enter your name and email below. And yes, we (my company) may, very occasionally, send you another recommendation or notice of opportunity, but we certainly will not SPAM you or waste your time, and you will be able to unsubscribe from the list anytime you like simply by clicking on a link that will be included in any email we may send you.
Best regards,
Richard D. Farley
