7 DEADLY SINS
OF INTERNET MARKETING
Deadly Sin Number #1:
You only advertise other peoples' programs.
If you have joined an Affiliate Program or a Network Marketing Program (MLM), you would know they give you a website address, which might even have your name mentioned on the front page. Don’t even think of just advertising this page.
Think about it for a moment. Imagine you had a shop. Would you just advertise one product that potential customers could go and buy anywhere? Most people don’t buy on their first visit anyway. Or, would you advertise your shop, so that once there, potential customers could buy lots of your products?
Why would you spend all your energy promoting someone else. The program manager doesn’t care whether you are successful. Not only are you paying them a monthly fee, you are promoting THEIR name all over the place. They get more and more well known as tens of thousands of people promote their name.
Then there is the problem of multiple products. Unless your whole business is based around one product, (not a good idea), you would have to start a whole new campaign for your next product and so on.
The simple solution? Promote yourself. You need to start thinking of your name as the online version of your shop. Concentrate on building your list through a lead capture page then maintain a steady flow of contact, (not just ads), coming from YOUR NAME.
This will begin to build a relationship with your leads that will reward you many times over in the future.
Deadly Sin Number #2:
You don’t have a follow up system..
The bottom line is that the majority of people do not sign up for a product on their first visit to a site. You are wasting most of your advertising effort if you let people visit your site once and then leave.
Typically you need a system of at least 5 follow ups to your potential customers over a 7-10 day period. These followups should highlight one or two really important benefits of your product and direct your potential customer back to your site. You can get up to 75% of your sign-ups on the fifth contact. Obviously for this you need their email address.
So what then should be the priority of your front sales page? To sell your product/program? No. Your front page should have one priority only, and that is to get your potential customer’s email address in return for something of value.
Now, your product doesn’t have to be a 200 page ebook that you sell for $50. It can be something as simple as a report that you give away freely. The benefit here is that it lets you advertise and promote your own site. This gives you the ability to obtain peoples' email addresses to follow up with them and build an ongoing relationship. You can then introduce them to the products of your choice.
And don’t just try and sell them. Provide them with opportunities that will give them the chance to be successful as well. People are placing a level of trust in you by registering their email address. Do not abuse this trust.
Deadly Sin Number #3:
You don’t have your own website..
There is no easy way around it. You MUST have your own site if you are going to succeed easily. I don’t mean one of the sites the different programs offer you with your monthly fee. I mean a site that is promoting "YOU".
This way the products you are offering are separate to your site. You can change products in the background or even better have a production line of different products on offer. But your promotions remain constant. You ONLY promote your front-end site. You are then getting many sales opportunities from attracting the one visitor.
It is important to have a number of income producing programs or products. You know the saying, "don’t put all your eggs in one basket"? Well this is certainly at its most important when you are looking at any form of business investment. It is the basis of any "Risk Management Strategy".
Deadly Sin Number #4:
You send your list one ad after another..
Even if you capture your leads yourself you must have the structure in place where you send them a regular newsletter or some form of communication that will assist THEM. Most marketers are completely focused on themselves and how much profit they can make from everyone on their list. And it shows.
I'm sure you would have seen it yourself. You end up on someone's list and they just keep sending you emails full of hype about how this program is the latest and greatest and people are signing up like wildfire. Two days later it is a different program, then another, then another. There is no link between the programs and you never hear back about any of the previous offers.
Obviously there is a credibility problem here. What you need to do is pull back on the money focus and provide your list with something that provides value to them. The money will come soon enough.
Deadly Sin Number #5:
You only use free or low cost advertising methods..
We all know Real Estate stories about particular areas that you could have picked up a few years ago for almost nothing that are now worth a fortune. Well the Internet has a lot in common with this scenario.
Initially there was targetted traffic available for anyone who wanted it, but over the years the Internet market has matured so that you now have to work for your profits just like any other business. (Of course it still has the advantage over most occupations in that you don't need qualifications and you can work whenever and whereever you choose.) But the reality is that most of the free options simply don't work anymore.
The problem arises because so many ebooks, articles and websites are out of date with their information. Many people try these methods out for a while with no success and then blame the program.
The most effective advertising method available today is via ezines. Specifically solo ads. Top sponsor ads are sometimes effective but don't waste your time with ads lower down in the ezine.
If you think about some of the issues raised in the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing, it makes perfect sense why ezine advertising works so well.
Firstly, the ezine has captured each of the leads themselves via their own lead capture page or via a form where the people are consciously giving their email details in return for receiving the ezine.
Secondly, the people on the list are more receptive because they receive real content. If they were just sent ads week after week they would soon ignore the emails or unsubscribe. However, when they are sent a regular newsletter with up to date articles and information that benefits the reader they become familiar (and receptive) to emails from that address.
It is this familiarity that you are paying for with a good ezine.
Deadly Sin Number #6:
Any people you sign up are not active..
This is especially the case for people trying to get involved in Network Marketing, but also applies to many Affiliate Programs which pay on two levels. It doesn’t matter how great an effort you put in to your marketing, it is simply not possible to keep all your customers happy and paying with a standard approach.
Network Marketing offers the most incredible income earning potential you will find anywhere on the Internet. But it is also the most widely criticised. How can this be?
So many people join a program, and do one of two things. They either don’t really do any marketing at all, and just wait for spillover from "Other People", or they fall for all the traps listed here in the 7 Deadly Sins of Internet Marketing.
We can use the 5x5 matrix as an example. Most people like the "realistic idea" of filling their 3rd level which will often give them an income of about $2000 per month. Lets say you are relatively successful and do recruit your 155 people. Now the problem. There is a good chance that NONE of those 155 people will ever recruit anybody. This is because of the same reasons. They either don’t do anything or they don’t know how.
So you now have 125 people on your 3rd level waiting for their spill over. So you need to recruit another 625 just so your 3rd level doesn’t drop out, then quickly recruit 3000 to keep them happy. You can see how the math shows a real problem.
If you are really confident, you might say, well I can’t provide spillover for those 125 people but I can replace them as quickly as they drop out. Well the bad news is they will drop out quicker than you can replace them. I would also question the ethics of purposely recruiting people to an opportunity that you know will not work for them. This is a poor short term strategy.
Deadly Sin Number #7:
You Program Hop..
Online Marketing is no more a get rich scheme than any other responsible business. If you put the effort into the right platform, you will most likely achieve a good level of success. But it won't happen overnight. You need to persist with your main money earners and stick with them. It may take as much as 12 months before you start earning a good profit. Often the first few months are the leanest.
But this establishment phase is necessary. Your regular contacts need to take time to get used to hearing about the program and decide for themselves that it is reliable. And then they will need time to feel comfortable with the program before they start including it in their marketing strategy.
Unfortunately, too many marketers join a program, wait for spillover and then decide within the first 3 (unprofitable) months that the program is no good.
Well the truth is more likely to be that their marketing strategy is no good.
This is one of the reasons why network marketing often gets a bad name. So many people put their toe in the water, waste a few months membership money, then bail out without giving the program a chance. Waiting for spillover, or implementing a marketing operation that commits many if not all of the 7 Deadly Sins above will not result in success with ANY program.
The answer is simple. Take the trouble to select good solid programs that fit in nicely with a good marketing strategy as described on these pages.
Make the right choice initially, then have the courage to stick with it.
