I'm really not one to be known as an alarmist but after observing
the state of Internet marketing these past nine years or so, I am ready
to say with absolute certainty that we are quickly approaching DEFCON
1. What exactly does that mean? Well, keep reading and you'll find out.
In
military terms, DEFCON 1 means that nuclear war is imminent. In plain
English, that means we're all pretty much screwed and might as well pack
up our troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile. I don't
know how much smiling I'm going to be doing when the end is nigh, but
I'm sure not going to go out without a fight. And neither should you.
Truth
is, Internet marketing is in a sorry state of affairs for a lot of
people. I'm almost sorry I came out of retirement. These last few weeks
have been depressing as hell. But why? Why are things so bad? Well,
there are a number of reasons. Some of them have been around for a long
time but have only gotten worse. Other reasons are relatively new and
have thrown a monkey wrench into the works that have only made it that
much more difficult to get ahead.
Let's start with some of the old stuff that has just gotten worse.
In
spite of the FTC proposed cleanup, spam and scams are more rampant than
ever. If you think I'm kidding, take a look at your in box. I can't
even keep up with mine anymore and that's with all the spam filters in
place that I can find. I'm about ready to just abandon email altogether
and go back to pen and paper. If you want me, expect to get a reply in
about a week when the postal system gets around to delivering my
response.
Bad sites are just as common as ever before. Except now
they're more dangerous than ever. Trojans, worms, you name it, are out
in full force. One recently totally crashed my PC and I had to reinstall
everything. That's when I went from XP to Windows 7 and was glad I did.
Windows 7 seems to be a lot more stable and so far I haven't had any
problems. But I'm not holding my breath.
Point is, today it's more
dangerous than ever to even go to a site. And then of course there are
hackers (we're fresh off the GoDaddy DDS attack) who will stop at
nothing to make your life a holy hell, which further reinforces my
belief that some people shouldn't be allowed to breed. But that's
another issue for another time.
How does all this affect out Internet marketing efforts?
The
obvious problem is that with all the hackers around, it is quite easy
for a competitor to take down one of our sites, thus stopping our income
for days at a time, if they wish to do so. Trust me, if they can take
down GoDaddy, they can take down all of us. It isn't hard to do.
But
there is a more subtle effect that all this hacking and installing of
viruses on our computers causes. People who aren't so computer savvy are
apt to be frightened away from going to sites that they don't know well
(such as an Amazon dot com) because of the possibility of being
infected with some virus. Combine that with stories of credit cards
being compromised (mine was from one of the sites I do business with)
and people are just reluctant to even use theirs online anymore.
All
of this will ultimately result in a drop in traffic and a drop in
sales. I've had people email me personally telling me that they'd love
to purchase one of my products but they refuse to buy anything online
because they don't trust anybody with their CC info, and have then asked
if they can send me a check. I've had to turn them down for obvious
reasons.
Okay, so much for the old stuff that has gotten worse.
But what about the new stuff? What's new that is making it so that
Internet marketing is harder now than ever?
In short... nothing. And that's the problem. Okay, stop scratching your head. I'm going to explain.
If
you look at the rest of the world, especially when it comes to
technology, there have been a lot of new creations over the past few
years. Shiny new toy syndrome has reached a new high with things like
the wireless hard drive, robotic web cam, mini USB monitors, wearable
surveillance kit and on and on and on. If I had a million bucks I still
couldn't buy every shiny new toy that came out yearly.
But
Internet marketing? Nothing has really changed in the last few years.
Because of that, it's harder than ever to attract a prospect's
attention. They've seen it all and most of it now makes them go "ho
hum." This is especially true in the Internet marketing niche itself
where you're trying to sell "how to make money" products to other
marketers. It's more and more difficult to come up with innovative ideas
that get people excited.
Notice I didn't say that the problem is
that Internet marketing tactics per say haven't changed. They don't have
to change. The same things that worked back in the early days of
advertising still work now. I'm talking about having a solid product
that fulfills a definite need and simply presenting it to your target
market. The problem comes when that presentation does nothing but puts
the prospect to sleep. That's what's gotten harder. There is just
nothing that hasn't been seen and done.
So what's the solution?
The solution is that you have to REALLY think outside of the box. Sure,
your idea might fall flat on its face but it's certainly worth trying.
One idea I just came up with today is to create what I call a follow-a-long sales page. It works like this.
You
take your sales page and then break it up into smaller pages. Let's say
you have a 20 page sales letter. Take the 20 pages and actually break
them up into 20 separate pages with a link at the bottom of each one
that goes to the next page.
This way, you're presenting your offer
in manageable chunks AND you can also get to see where in the chain
your prospect drops out. Is it after page 1 because they simply can't be
bothered to move onto the next page, or is it after page 7? This will
give you two valuable pieces of info.
1. It will tell you whether or not this is a viable option to a traditional sales letter.
2.
It will tell you, if it is viable (people are going past page 1) where
in the chain you are weakest so that you can make modifications.
I
honestly don't know why I didn't think of this a long time ago. Sure,
it may fall flat on its face, but it will certainly be interesting to
try, especially if page 1 is all of maybe 3 lines.
Yes, put your
headline on page 1 with a "click to continue" button underneath and see
how many people click to continue. If 90% of them do, maybe you've hit
on something.
Point is, and like I said, this may bomb out
totally, you're trying something different in order to get your
prospect's attention. "Different" is something I don't get to see a lot
of. It's all just the same old same old and many people are getting
tired of it.
Like I said, Internet marketing is approaching DEFCON
1. Are you ready? Because if you're not, you just might find that you
don't have a business TO market come tomorrow.
To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim
Want to avoid DEFCON 1 and get some great business ideaa? Get my
4 Steps To Business Success and you'll be on your way.
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