Hey Everyone,
As many may or may not have noticed. Recently, there has been quite a few online internet marketing courses that have been set up, marketed and currently running as we speak. In fact there has been so many of them, that my inbox, for it not have been the adequate size that Gmail has provide us individually, it would have probably exploded. So, okay, it may be not that dramatic, but you know what I mean.
Sure, most of them are quite parallel in what they cover or touch upon i.e. the same or similar content such as blogging, aWeber, email marketing, article marketing, use of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Squidoo etc….
At this point some of them will probably introduce ways to attract even more traffic to their website or blog via the forms or CPA, use of work payment incentives sites such as Microworkers, MyMicroJobs or Amazon Mechanical Turk. Additionally, they may also introduce the element of video marketing, YouTube, Viddler, forums marketing, and a basic form of Keyword Searching and S.E.O.
What I must also state at this point is that I’m not trying to make a massive fuss about this or about the numerous amounts of emails that have been burdened upon me to filter through one day, but the issue is that with all these various newbie internet marketing courses, newbies for one, are sure spoilt for choice, which leads me to the second interrelated issue which directly affects us Internet Marketers and that is: How do we divide the Apple Pie?
That’s right… how do marketers divide the Apple Pie?
Let just for one moment, we imagine that the apple pie is proportionally divided into 1000 segments, each segment represents 10 wannabe die-hard, ready for action internet newbies wanting to make it big in the I.M. scene – How do we divide it?
Sure the Gurus, and more established Internet Marketers would surely grab a bigger slice or at least, snatch a few extra segments and the tasty crispy pastry edge, compared to the rest of the others who have just started, who may be scrapping over the last crumb or caster sugar granule, or the horrible soggy bit in the middle which nobody really likes, that it unless your apple pie is made and bought from the famous fast food restaurant. (In which that case – it’s all crispy, battered and even worse, the segment pieces would be even smaller.)
And guess what, things don’t have to be like that at all. In fact, nowadays, the game rules have been reversed or at least there are leniencies here and there, where one may take advantage of. Sure the gurus will still have the upper hand in most scenarios but what we mustn’t neglect is that one of the major ways that can help you stand out amidst the competition and enhance sales is to show customers that you are highly knowledgeable in your niche segment, something that the gurus have amassed through… years of initial hard work.
And you know what – you can fast tracked this process by writing blogs, posting articles on ezine articles and answering questions on various forums are excellent methods and channels of demonstrating your knowledge, your expertise as well gaining your potential customers trust and faith in you and your business.
Just remember the following word though….
“Clarity”
Why I hear you asking?
The main fundamental reason as to what will sell or not sell, is not just about having a great personal character, the best product on the market, or the most advance features in the marketplace. The most important point is clarity. Sure I’ve been banging on about the word “Clarity” for the past 10 minutes, but you’ll be amazed by the amount of guides that I have come across, of which no doubt are very good products, some even beyond excellence with respect to the content contained within, but the way that the information was presented and delivered was beyond disbelief. Some verging on being unreadable and needing a dictionary.
And I’m not joking here either. Some of the guides and courses I have come across were written with such highly technical language, fancy acronyms, and jargon, that I even had to resort to using Google, dictionaries and asking fellow I.M. friends and family if they new what the word or acronym meant.
I mean do you know what “PPCSE” is, or what “INK” means? At first, I though “PPCSE” was some kind of fancy certification or qualification (think PostGraduate Course i.e. th PGCE bit). Apparently, when I later discovered through a CPA (Cost per Action) Advertising website that “PPCSE” meant Pay Per Click Search Engine and “INK” isn’t the liquid thing that you have stored in pretty plastic cartridges which you replace when you inkjet printer flashed at you continuously with a red light, which at night time, if unknown, one would have thought it was a ticking time bomb.
Instead “INK” stands for “Inktomi” which apparently a key player and pioneer in the search engine market, but also one that was little known, as it operated ‘behind the scenes’ without having a search facility under its own brand. Now though, it is part of Yahoo! and central to the development of Yahoo!’s own search engine technology.
What I’m trying to demonstrate here is that users, buyers, potential wannabe internet marketers and pretty much anyone else ( that also includes scientist, lawyers, doctors or any other occupations which involve researching though journals and technical papers for a living sometimes), all love reading free flowing and clear content which is easy to understand too. If they are stuck trying to understand a technical jargon, term or anagram, you can be sure they will be on their way to the next site, or the next marketing course in a jiffy, abandoning yours in no time. Therefore, one of the best writing methods is to write in a simple and easy to understand language.
Finally, if you are going to write something that will probably sell something afterwards, don’t be too blatant about promoting your products, otherwise you will be perceived to be a long advertisement and will not attract readership. People do not want to be sold, but instead they would rather prefer to understand how to solve problems in their life. If they can identify this with you, and you have solved your similar problem with a product or service that you have confidence in, that is an endorsement that resonates.
The bottom line here is: ensure what ever you write is clear, concise, transparent, and that it contain enough knowledge on your product or service, and that it is extremely easy and simple to read and understand. And if you do promise something – make sure you deliver on it and when things go wrong; don’t squeeze you way out of the situation by hiding under words that even you don’t understand
Finally remember this, if you have been sold an apple pie, of which it looks like one with the pretty apple logo on the pastry top, and you put it in your mouth, the last thing you would want to find out is that you have been misled into buying a pork pie instead. That is unless you prefer pork pies instead or apple pies, of which in that case, I’m sorry to have wasted your time!
Until next time, best wishes and regards
Nigel
