The 10 Great Myths of Internet Marketing

Home > Promote > Marketing > Articles

by Linda Cox

Greetings...

For the purpose of illustration, let's use the superhighway analogy. Let's think of your business as a hotdog stand located on the superhighway along with millions of other shops, malls, cafes, stores, restaurants and, yes, hotdog stands.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 1: Free Sells

So your hotdog stand offers something for free... what?

Napkins? Great. Wow. Excellent. But remember, sell the sizzle, not the steak! So what excites you most about the napkins?

Are they printed with horoscopes? Are they recyclable? Extra absorbent? Two ply? Then say so!

But remember that your freebie is kinda lame and everybody kinda knows it and nobody is really forking over actual cash out of gratitude for free napkins.

MORAL: Free is highly overrated.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 2: All Traffic is Good Traffic

It would be more accurate to say that MOST traffic is POTENTIALLY good.

If you have a hotdog stand, virtually anyone can be converted to a customer, whether they came for your ridiculously excellent napkins, clean washrooms, or snappy banter.

But, if you sell '82 LeSabre windshield wiper screws, then you might want to be a little more targeted in your efforts.

MORAL: Focus. Focus. Focus.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 3: All Businesses Should Be On the Net

The best advice I've ever given as an Internet marketer was "Stay off the net."

Nobody listens, of course. They know that the Internet is the fabled El Dorado where the rivers run gold and cash is common as dust-bunnies.

(Maybe the local bait shop owner just thought I wanted it all for myself.)

MORAL: Leap before you look, quoth the lemming.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 4: Drive Your Hit Counters Insane!

Hit counters don't actually go insane... netrepreneurs do. If you want your hit counter to go insane, tell it about your childhood.

Any traffic generating trick that works will stop working next week when everyone is doing it and no one is falling for it.

MORAL: Tricks are for dogs.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 5: The Great Marketing Secret!

Oxymoron.

In any type of marketing, if it's a secret, it's a failure... definitively.

MORAL: Stick to basics.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 6: It's Come As You Are

It's okay to work in your underwear in your partially remodeled basement as long as everyone assumes you're wearing a suit in a high-rise on Success Avenue.

It's NOT okay to broadcast your slovenly habits to the world at large via ill-formatted email, poor spelling, sloppy grammar and inept punctuation.

If every second line of your email breaks after the first word, we're done.

You see, if I'm gonna buy a hotdog from you--a scary prospect at best--I wanna be pretty dang sure you're not a shortcut kinda guy, know what I mean?

MORAL: Don't slouch.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 7: There's No Such Thing As Excess

There is.

Caps. Exclamation points. Red. Hyperbole. Blinking... (actually, ANY blinking is excessive).

MORAL: It's a hotdog, not the second coming. Settle down.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 8: Banners Work

Banners should only be used by big companies for branding and hyperinflating IPO prices, not for hotdog stands for traffic generation.

MORAL: Banners suck. Free banners suck for free.

(I know, you disagree. If you're going to run a banner campaign, track the numbers closely and test everything. Banners demand true Claude Hopkins-style scientific marketing. 'Nuff said.)

_____________

GREAT MYTH 9: Get Rich Quick

The Internet is still real life. Cyber doesn't mean fantasy. WWW doesn't stand for Whatever We Want.

Set up an honest business, cook a decent hotdog, pay for advertising and don't quit your day job just yet.

MORAL: Get rich slowly.

_____________

GREAT MYTH 10: Free Marketing

I saved this point for last to emphasize it.

Overfondness for free marketing methods is the number one killer of happy success stories on the net...

But wait!

You CAN send 100,000 spam-free emails a month with your own free-for-all links page, right?

And you CAN reach tens of thousands with multisubmitters and free classifieds, right?

And you CAN email millions by subscribing to hundreds of opt-in group lists, right?

And 94 million netizens WOULD swallow a little spam to get to one of your hotdogs, right?

Sure! And you CAN eat out of dumpsters, right?

MORAL: Uh... don't be an idiot?