There seem to be two schools of thought in the Internet marketing world.
The first I call the “rape and pillage” school. These folks don’t know their customers and they don’t want to know their customers. They just want to get people to their site, convert them, and get their money.
False advertising, forced continuity, less-than-zero customer service…anything and everything goes. It’s all OK to these folks.
Then there are people who want to build businesses that provide real products to real people. They want a business that will last more than a few months. They want customers who come back again and again and tell others. They focus on the long term work of creating an asset as opposed to a temporary income spike.
Unfortunately, the “rape and pillage” mentality dominates what passes (laughably) as Internet marketing education these days. It’s too bad because the naive folks who try to emulate so many of today’s Internet marketing “success stories” are being set up for failure on two counts:
1. The “rape and pillage” crowd NEVER tell the full story of how they really made their money (assuming they made as much money as they claim.) They always leave important parts out because if they told the WHOLE story, no one in their right minds would want to model them.
2. The “rape and pillage” method while it might work for the short term – and “might” is the operative word – is almost guaranteed to end in failure, personal and financial.
Here’s a newsflash from a recent study published by the DM News: the online businesses that provide the best service (Netflix. Amazon, QVC) also enjoy: 1) more repeat purchases and 2) more free word-of-mouth advertising.
It’s just common sense, isn’t it?
But when you read (and now watch) the latest Internet “sure-fire” money-making scheme, this kind of common sense is always absent from the story.
– 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.
