Not all that long ago, there was no web industry to speak of.
Companies that were selling things online were considered a novelty and many business and marketing ‘experts’ considered the Internet a fad.
Well, the latest numbers are in – and they’re staggering…
Total projected direct marketing-generated sales for 2005: $1.85 trillion
#1 sales generator: Direct Mail (not including catalogs) – $483.8 billion. No surprise there.
#2 sales generator: Telephone marketing – $402.6 billion. Ditto.
#3 sales generator – and here’s the shocker…
The Internet – $284 billion dollars
Keep in mind that just ten short years ago, total worldwide Internet-based sales were less than $1 billion dollars.
Talk about explosive growth.
And look who the Internet is beating out:
Direct response newspaper ads are on track to generate just $213.6 billion in sales this year and direct response TV, including infomericals, just $150.1 billion.
But it gets even better.
Not only does the Internet sell more than direct response newspaper ads and TV commercials, it does so at a much lower cost.
For example, TV advertisers spent $21.5 billion for their sales. Internet advertisers spent just $12.6 billion to get almost twice the sales.
No wonder there are so many bona fide Internet millionaires.
Interestingly, most of these guys and gals make their money the old fashioned way without hype and fanfare.
They don’t sell ‘get rich quick’ eBooks. They don’t sell five-figure coaching programs. They don’t make their money in ‘stealth mode’ or on ‘auto-pilot.’
They find good products that people need and want and deliver them in a way that provides service and value.
A radical thought, I know, but something worth thinking about if you find yourself caught on the ‘get rich quick’ merry-go-round. Making money on the Internet is very real, but the Internet is a business just like any other.
The gurus who cook up one enticing but bogus ‘instant short-cut’ after another are not only pulling your chain, they’re short-circuiting your chance to take part in one of the great parties on earth.
The real opportunities in Internet marketing today are just as staggering as the sales figures I quoted at the beginning of this article and the formula for success is tried and true: find a real market made up of real people and serve them in a real way…
…And leave the slick moves to the gurus and to the unfortunate folks who tag along after them lemming-style.
Contemplating making a big commitment to a guru in exchange for a vague but exciting promise?
Before you sign on the dotted line, just line up his promise up with the formula and ask yourself: “Am I going to learn how to reach real markets and real people and deliver real service?”
You can cut through a lot of smoke and mirrors fast with this little tool.
Use it.
It would be a shame to miss the real party because you wasted your time, money and energy with the ‘get rich quick’ crowd.
– Ken McCarthy
P.S. For over 25 years I’ve been sharing the simple but powerful things that matter in business with my clients.
If you’d like direction for your business that will work today, tomorrow and twenty years from now, visit us at the System Club.
I have not been at it that long but so far it has been an adventure
The sad thing is that there is not only a plethora of gurus out there that promise only “they” have the special knowledge that you need, but that some companies are built solely to market on the drip factor, meaning if you buy introductory product, you get x knowledge, but to delve deeper you have to then have y product, which then leads you to have to have z product, and so on.
That is why I liked the System Seminar so much, because that introduced me to many different ways to make money that didn’t require buying xyz products but involved the utilization of real-world knowledge and experience instead and leveraging that into profits.