Marketing

I think billboards are a general waste of money, most especially for websites.

But I’ve had an interesting thought.

The Australian outdoor advertising market has been depressed lately. Because of this I’ve noticed that some billboards are staying up for a very long time. There’s one outside Caulfield station for the Melbourne Storm which has been up for a few years now.

There’s also a tram going around Melbourne with a fading ad for G Star, a clothing brand. Whole tram advertising is obviously not that popular, and rather than spending the money removing the ad Connex have just waited for new money to come along.

I can understand why some don’t like the idea of their ad fading and looking, well, crap. If you can find a billboard that is changed semi-regularly maybe you’d be on to something.

This is from Peter Aldin, a life-coach and someone who I esteem greatly. Great Circle specialises in helping people interact more effectively with the people they lead, with their families, with their colleagues and partners.

Knowing and doing are two different things.

E.g. You may know that fuel injected engines require your fuel level to stay above quarter tank. How often do you let the level dip below that?

E.g. You know men and women are different. How intentionally you act on the information?

E.g. And you probably know the basic premise of sales/marketing that says “discover your customers and then offer a way to relieve it.” But how are you acting on that premise?

People don’t part with their hard earned dollar for the hell of it or because they think you are funny or smart or smell nice. They will pay for goods and services that satisfy the need.

This need could be simple, subtle or serious.

Simple:

• I’m hungry, where can I eat?
• I need to dress–to–impress at my big job interview.
• I’m bored with the music I already own.

Subtle:

• I wish I could get more done.
• I don’t feel at home in this job.
• People don’t seem to take me seriously.

Serious:

• My finances are a mess!
• My business partner and I are having more and more conflict. If this goes on, the whole thing could unravel.

 

And if you can find a way to uncover this and address it, then you will have gotten to first base. Once again, knowing and doing are different things. The next post will look at one way to do this in ordinary conversations with new contacts.

Nearly everyone who has researched making money online has probably run into internet marketers.

These are the guys with websites that look a lot like this.

I’ve never subscribed to one of these sites, preferring to sit back and read what the blogs are saying but over time it’s hard not to become quite cynical.

It’s pretty much one big multi-level marketing scheme, in reality.

Rich Schefren runs coaching programs on how to make money on the internet. The problem is, the people he’s coaching are also running programs on how to make money from the internet. Mike Filsaime is the most famous student of Rich Schefren. He has all sorts of ‘make money from the net’ websites. Reading his testimonials, it looks like all his successful students are selling us programs telling us… how to make money from the internet. One wonders how they would envisage me, as a student, making money online. Perhaps by teaching others how to do so? Hmm…

Do any of their students ever actually sell STUFF? As in, real things? It’s just one big loop! Or even if they’re just selling electronic products, are any of them selling something NOT about making money from the internet (or something closely correlated to it)?

Yaro Starak, another Schefren devotee, owns (or used to own) BetterEdit.com. A legitimate enterprise, editing the work of students around the world. He started the blog Entrepreneurs-Journey.com to talk about this and also other aspects of business. After a while the content started on a downward slide to the point that he was almost continually talking about internet marketing products and the exruciatingly long upcoming launch of his Blog Traffic King program (although I think the name has now been amended to Blog Mastermind.) He’s now a ‘name’ in the internet marketing sphere but at what cost? By far his most interesting posts were the ones talking about the actual progression of his business. I miss them.

As an aside, the best thing Starak ever did was introduce me to the free books of Rich Schefren. Ignore his painful sales babble and just read the books, all of which have a couple of really good nuggets.

Another area is blogging. Darren Rowse is a big leader in the ‘how to blog professionally’ category. John Chow followed in ‘how to make money online’ and has spawned a whole army of followers who are all competing with him on the same ‘make money online’ keyword. They’re competing… ….with the guru. I don’t get it.

Blogs with semi-decent content about blogging can pick up 1000 RSS readers almost overnight. But the competition is growing as everyone is trying to get in on the Rowse and Chow pie. Meanwhile, the readership of both Rowse and Chow keeps on going up, and up, and up (and good on them for it).

Both of them are very credible in their own right: Rowse has a digital photography blog with more than 20,000 readers. Chow has a tech website which is his main source of income (scary, given that his blog generates US$12,500 a month.) The readers of both sets of blogs would do much better striking out on their own.

I honestly believe blogging for money is best left alone. To help promote a product, sure : David Airey does it brilliantly. But specifically to rake in advertising revenue? Even dumblittleman.com has 70,000 RSS subscribers but if you look at the cost of advertising yourself you’ll see he’s barely making anything.

There is money to be made, definitely, but the percentage of people succeeding in any real way is so tiny. A guru with thousands of devoted followers should be making more than $12,500 a month. If that’s what the BEST is making, imagine what’s left for the rest of us.