Everything seems to be moving to the Internet and as an industry, it is definitely flourishing. But not everyone who advertises on the Internet is benefiting from this change. In fact it has become an extremely difficult arena for many companies to succeed in.

And that brings me to a story.

Gary Halbert-Copywriter

It’s been said that Gary Halbert, the great copywriter (actually one of the greatest copywriters of all time) was at a seminar teaching people about how to be good copywriters. He gave a scenario where if everyone in the audience owned a hamburger stand and he decided to put one right across the street, what advantages would they like to have in order to compete against him?

Everybody gave all kinds of answers such as:

“I would use the tastiest, freshest hamburger meat!”

“My prices would be the lowest!”

“I’d pick the busiest location!”

“I’d want a world famous recipe!”

“I’d offer customers credit, so they can pay later!”

“I’d have more staff to serve more people faster!”

“I’d sell my burgers wholesale!”

Apparently Gary listened patiently to all of their answers until everyone had finally given their turn. “Okay, he replied, smugly smiling the weathered, all-knowing grin of an old master.

“I’ll give you every single advantage you have asked for… I only want one advantage and, if you give it to me, I’ll whip the pants off all of you when it comes to selling burgers!”

Apparently everyone was listening very intently as he gave his final answer

“The only advantage I want is… a starving crowd!”

The previous quotation was taken from a book called “The Niche Marketing Black Book” from MarketSamurai.com. These guys have an interesting product that delves into how to find niche markets on any subject and use it to your advantage in marketing. It’s a well-written book and I highly recommend it but, I disagree with the previous story.

I hate to be the one to disagree with the great Gary Halbert, one of the most revered marketers of all time, but something doesn’t quite fit. Why doesn’t it fit you ask?

The reason is because I’ve just seen that exact scenario played out last weekend where 2 hamburger stands were right across the street from each other and the story wasn’t as Gary described it.

You see, earlier in the day I had taken my boys sledding in the snow in the nearby mountains. It was a brisk cold day that was perfect for sledding. After a few hours of getting bumped around and having a great time, we had had enough and headed home. Everyone decided they were quite hungry so I called my wife and told her we were going to get something to eat on the way home. I asked the boys where they really wanted to go and a few of the popular fast food joints came to mind. Wendy’s seem to be at the top of the list until one of the other boys saw a sign for In-N-Out Burger and we deided to go there.

IN-N-OUT BURGERS

As soon as we got near it we noticed an enormous line of cars waiting to go through the drive-through. We could tell that inside, many people were standing around with no place to sit. It was going to be hard to find a place to park but we had made up our minds, we really liked their fries and that’s where we determined to go.

We could already taste it.

As we waited for the stoplight to turn into the establishment, I turned my head to the right and saw Burger King sitting right there on the opposite corner. Not a single car was in line at the drive-through. There was only four or five cars in the parking lot and the place looked mostly empty.

I pointed that out to the boys that we had the option to go there, but we had already made our decision. We went through the light, turned the corner and found a parking spot, went in, ordered our meal, waited 10 minutes for a table to open up, scarfed down those delectable fries and headed home completely happy that we made this choice.

But the image of a totally packed restaurant right across the street from an almost totally empty one selling almost the exact same product has haunted me ever since.

Why would one company, In-N-Out Burger, who spends almost nothing on advertising have 10-20 times the customers of Burger King (who spends millions on advertising) on the exact same day under the same conditions? Is their food that much better? Do they have a bigger selection? Do they have a better image, brand, logo, marketing campaign, customer service, etc?

Most people would say that in almost every case, Burger King beats them. Burger King has a far bigger selection of food items. They spend far more money in advertising, their logo was designed and refined through endless focus groups over several years. They have top of the mind awareness on all kinds of television ads as their smart aleck King does all sorts of goofy things to people.

The Burger King Bar?

So why is In-N-Out Burger literally bringing home the bacon while in this case, Burger King was barely serving anyone?

I believe I’m about to reveal to you a secret that is so essential and is so completely and totally relevant to the world of Internet marketing (and marketing in general) that you need to take great heed to this message. This is so simple yet so powerful that I believe it makes all the difference between the two Burger places I’ve just mentioned.

You see, although I really like In-N-Out Burger’s hamburgers and especially their fries (but only when they’re hot) their food is really not THAT much better than Burger Kings. I mean we’re not comparing Burger King to PF Chang’s here, we’re comparing it to another hamburger place. All the major fast food chains offer burgers that are only slightly different in taste (although I know that some people disagree with that over-generaliztion and have sworn allegiances to their favorite brand. I’m just glad that McDonald’s finally recently improved the taste of their burgers. I refused to eat there for years!).

The prices aren’t that much different. The selection is incredibly smaller because they don’t offer a $.99 value meal, chicken strips, salads, and endless assortment of side dishes, kids meals, tofu options, anything vegetarian, etc. They basically only have three sizes of the same hamburgers, one size of fries and the usual brands of drinks and some shakes. Thats it. And it all fits on a small menu just above the order takers head.

They were located right across the street from each other so that can’t be a real big factor, in fact, I got off the freeway on the same side of the street as Burger King and had to cross the street to get to In-N-Out Burger, so that rules that out. They weren’t offering hamburgers at wholesale or on credit, they actually have less room to eat in and people were standing around, the company isn’t new (since 1948) so it’s not one of those phenomenons relating to something brand-new and exciting.

So what is it that makes it so successful and have more people eating there?

You see, Gary Halbert was wrong. Both of these places had the exact same customer base: starving crowds of people. They were all driving by the same street. There were no special signs anywhere advertising a reduction in costs or free fries with their order (there actually may have been some on the Burger King place-those kinds of signs are always there). They were all looking for a quick and tasty meal but 20 times more people chose In-N-Out Burger than Burger King.

Gary Halbert was right if you were thinking about wanting to establish a business and deciding which business to go in. Yes, of course, you would want to find one where people are clamoring for your product. But I believe he is incorrect in this instance when comparing competitive strategies between those in the same industry. They already have the same crowd of starving customers.

And that brings us full circle to the beginning of my discussion-why do some companies who market on the Internet succeed while others don’t? How do some companies manage to spend a fraction of what another does and get tremendously better results?

If you thought trying to find your ad in a newspaper was difficult, it can be far worse on the Internet. One of the things that is so appealing to those who want to advertise or market on the Internet is its low cost. In many cases it’s extremely low. There isn’t the giant expense of television towers, radio waves, huge printing presses, etc. to get the message out. Everyone with computer access can market on the Internet.

But that low-cost alternative can be extremely expensive. For many people, some estimate well over 90%, they don’t succeed in getting their message across. They waste their time and effort and how much does that cost?

Just send me your basic information, and I’ll reply with an answer that has tremendous impact on your Internet marketing decisions, in fact all of your marketing decisions. In fact, some of you may not choose to market on the Internet at all after reading what I am about to reveal, its that powerful.

I promise I won’t spam you, that’s not my goal. My goal is to help companies market themselves on the Internet, not use subversive or illegal tactics to accomplish this task. and if you don’t like information, you can always delete and it’s easy to opt out of getting any more e-mails from me.

I just think it’s essential that people understand this vital principle of marketing can not only save you hundreds or even thousands of dollars, it will help you find more targeted customers, ones that are looking for you.

Once you realize this, it can totally set you free and save you a fortune. I mean think about it, In-N-Out Burger is an old company, with an old-style, a limited product offering that doesn’t hardly advertise anywhere. Yet it creams its competitor right across the street because it understands one principle of marketing and has stuck with that principle. It hasn’t gotten diverted into endless options and programs. It has a brand and sticks with it. It knows where it fits in knows where it doesn’t.

I look forward to hearing your comments about this principle. Just fill out the form to the right and I will get back to you soon.

I asked to see his website and when I went there I learned all kinds of things about this company. First of all I discovered that they are getting a large amount of traffic (over 282,000 views per month or around 10,000 per day) and a great deal of that is from PPC. In other words they are paying for people to visit their site. Some months they pay over $16,000 per day for these visitors.

But the real killer here is that they don’t have their website properly formatted for SEO and therefore not able to take advantage of free traffic. By just applying some basic principles they could have a tremendous amount of free, regular and steady traffic to their site. I am not sure who persuaded them to just do PPC and forget about basic SEO, but they must have some motive to do so.

I recently heard of a company that did about $10 Million per year and spent about $1 Million with Google PPC per year to accomplish this. But something happened (no one knows why for sure) but they were de-listed by big G and went out of business. A few hundred employees out of work because some bureaucrat didn’t like something and pulled the plug. The management swore that they were not doing anything unethical or illegal and they had no idea what happened or why.

Never put all your eggs in one basket with Internet Marketing! Make sure you have a good footing in many areas and not just one. There is too much power in the hands of some of these people and this is ripe for corruption.

If they would pull the plug on $1,000,000 per year in advertising dollars, they will certainly do it for a lot less, and possibly any other reason they can think of.

Unfortunately I also had to sever a relationship because of this same issue. This person even asked me to work for free, not even offering anything in return for my work. The thing they would not listen to me and the advice I gave as to what they needed to do. And after 6 trips to their office, I got a whopping $300 for work on a new project. Obviously it was not an economical relationship, well maybe it was for them!

Anyway, the thing to remember is that everyone suffers when the economy is down. I have seen some mighty big companies go under in the internet marketing world and we all just have to keep our heads held high and have faith in the future.

And PLEASE vote out that bunch of idiots in Washington who are determined to destroy our constitution at all costs! The economy can easily be fixed by following the rules of economics: make it profitable to be in business! Its that simple.

OK, Kelly, back on track. Get back to the business at hand-internet marketing. Please enjoy the post below from a very frustrated and passionate individual. I’m sorry but I don’t even know his name. (I didn’t bother with a link because it won’t be there in a few weeks anyway.)

Yep, I hear you! All these people who can’t develop themselves, apparently, never stop to realize that developers are CAPABLE of building the “next big thing” on their own and earn all the profits. Problem is, we’re too busy trying to find REAL WORK from people who will INVEST in the MONTHS involved in developing a social networking site for them.

If I had a dime for every low-life cheapskate who offered “profit” sharing when their “idea” is developed in the MONTHS it takes, I’d actually be quite financially stable.

I don’t get it. These people don’t care enough about their “ideas” to see the person developing it FOR THEM live and work comfortably. How exactly does one do that when their time is expended, kids are hungry and bills are piling up?

I, too, and sick of these people. They either need to learn how to develop their ideas and reap ALL the “rewards” when it becomes bigger than all the other ideas people had and couldn’t make it work, or PAY for the time of a developer.

These morons see the end result of something like Facebook and have absolutely NO IDEA that developers don’t just wave a magic wand to create something similar, and POOF, in a couple of “weeks”, it’s miraculously done!

Hey, dreamers and “idea-weavers”: If your ideas are so great, write a business plan, get an investor to invest in YOUR IDEA, then INVEST in THE VERY DEVELOPERS who will make your “idea” come to life!

In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

Some “know it all” NON-Developer will contact me privately to tell me how “egotistical” I am because I expect to be paid for my time, put food on table and cover the very electric bill that keeps my PC powered. Happens all the time! These people are slave-drivers who go through life thinking we “OWE” our skills and time to them.

To the person seeking a “non-paid, passionate web designer and marketer”.

Let me get this straight: You want a “designer” to DEVELOP a social networking website for you, plus have knowledge of internet marketing, meaning, you not only want your “designer” to DEVELOP the site for you, but also market it when it’s completed, so that you can grant part ownership in a site that has the “potential” to get millions of members?

Let me ask you, something: What exactly is it that YOU plan to do for YOUR “idea” to ensure its a success? Having someone perform slave labor for you for the next SEVERAL MONTHS to DEVELOP something GREAT on a domain you’ve invested $7.99 into registering, means, among other things, you have no conception of reality. Furthermore, what you’re describing indicates that you need THREE separate professionals to rip off:

1. A WEB DEVELOPER. 2. A WEB DESIGNER. 3. AN SEO and SEM EXPERT.

How’s that for “passionate”?

Can you make money with Internet Marketing? Yes, absolutely you can. Is it easy? No, but with a little education it’s doable. With a little bit of research and a whole lot of effort, a fairly good income can be made.

Can you make money with Multilevel Marketing? You know, selling lotions potions and pills, exotic drinks, healthy chocolate, legal advice, etc? Yes you can. I have several friends that have done fairly well in the industry. I have a lot more that are no longer doing it but that is true with any business, it probably fits the 80/20 rule.

But now here’s the real question-can you mix Internet Marketing with Multilevel Marketing and make any money? I believe that for the vast majority of people the answer is an emphatic No! Now why would I say this? For one very simple reason-the two do not mix very well.

Multilevel marketing succeeds within intimate contact between individuals, relationship marketing and one-on-one communication. If a successful person shares with another his duplicatable process of success and that person follows through and follows his example, success can be had. It’s actually very simple business and I personally know some very wealthy people in multilevel marketing although they are not close friends.

Internet marketing works exactly the opposite fashion. It’s also an extremely large and broad-based business that cannot be so easily narrow down to a simple description. There are pay per click campaigns, ad campaigns, e-mail campaigns, affiliate marketing programs, article marketing, click through programs, etc. etc. But none of these are the personal one-on-one programs in multilevel marketing requires for success.

There are a number of big-time gurus and marketers who develop systems that have tried to combine the two business models together. They have a rather appealing allure in trying to convince someone to join a MLM program and marketed to the world via Internet marketing systems. Just imagine, you may have the entire world to market to! Sounds good doesn’t it?

It doesn’t work.

Let me rephrase that-it works for one type of individual: the hardcharging Type A personality who promises everyone in the world: the moon, personal attention, duplication process systems and training, etc. and then completely drops the person who joined the minute the credit card account went through!

Type-A Wins at Others Expense

I wish I could say that this only happened once or twice but I have to believe that the vast majority of those who have flashed their massive checks and bank account information to entice the unsuspecting masses, are more than people realize.

Everybody is searching for a way to make money online. They know it’s the future. They can see how it affects their own personal lives. Everyone is a witness to the dramatic changes taking place because of the Internet over the last 10 years, probably greater than any changes that it ever occurred in the history of the world, and they want to be a part of it.

Everybody seems to be searching for a way to make extra money and because of the recent global recession, there is a great sense of anxiety and fear in everyone’s minds. This has caused a number of people to be suckered in to joining multilevel marketing programs with the sales pitch that using the Internet will help them avoid having to sell to their family and friends and open up the world to be in their downline.

My advice is obvious in this discussion. Do not combine the two. Pick one or the other and if you choose some sort of Internet marketing program be sure and narrow it down to one highly specific area to pursue.

If you want to make money with multilevel marketing find somebody in your local area, not someone online, and ask them to show you their system. It won’t take long to find someone that proclaims that there is success in the business, but you’ll have to do some homework. Ask them for the names of people in their downline and how they succeeded. If they are telling you anything different than he is, find someone else.

If you want to find an Internet marketing program to join it’ll actually be a little bit harder search. There are so many people proclaiming successful programs with websites of Ferraris on the beach that it’s really hard to find a reputable program to follow.

The following is a link to a program with which I will make a small affiliate commission if you join but it is really the only one I can currently recommend. After spending literally thousands of dollars over the last few years on program after program I’ve thrown them all out except for this one.

My only hope is that less people will be taken in by the numerous scams and shysters that proliferate the Internet. There are so many that it’s sickening and part of the reason I’m writing this article.

Do your homework, have faith in the future and your abilities, work hard and things will work out.

You may even get that Ferrari on the Beach drinking Monavie, swallowing Usana Vitamins eating Healthy Chocolate and protected by Pre-Paid Legal all the while!

This is a funny video of a dog who attacks his own foot, thinking it is trying to steal his bone. I got this link from YouTube from a suggestion offered by my Full Sail course.

But I am including it here because I think there is a valuable lesson here. At first blush it seems rather silly for a Dog to attack his own foot. Doesn’t he know what his own feet are doing?

But if you compare this dog to a company where the parts of the dog are compared to different parts of the company, very interesting parallel arises. I presume that most people would think that the head of the dog is the president or CEO. Maybe the feet are the salespeople and the tail is the accounting department. It really doesn’t matter to me which part of the company is compared to what part of the dog.

What interests me is how many times I have seen companies fight among themselves, internally, even though they’re after the same goal.

There’s all kinds of analogies we could make here including comparing fights between sales and production, accusations of those who want to take all the credit, differences in philosophy between marketing and accounting, etc. and believe me, sometimes those fights are far more vicious than this dog’s teeth.

The goal of any company needs to be to gain and keep profitable customers. Profits alone cannot suffice. A company that only has the narrow goal of profits will cut short much-needed plans and activities to maintain a customer’s return. A company that only produces products just to maintain production will lose profitability.

But every company needs to have a heart and soul associated with it so that reaching the goal of getting “the bone” can be shared by every member of the organization. When everybody understands the marketing plan of the company, proper communication can take place and everyone may know their value in the company and can thus contribute greatly to profits

Universities that teach Internet marketing programs require you to sign a Global Professional Standards (GPS) form. One of the most important items of this professional standards agreement is that you won’t plagiarize what other people have written on the Internet. If you want to sell an affiliate product or do something with Google Adsense you may have purchased an Internet marketing program from some of those big-name gurus. I don’t need to name any names here, there are too many to list.

But almost everyone that I’ve ever seen who claims to be a guru in this industry teaches people to write articles to create back links to your products in an unethical fashion. I can’t tell you how many of them say something like this, “Many people have a hard time trying to find information about what to write. Just go to _ _ _ _articles.com and look up your subject. Just reword each sentence so you aren’t plagiarizing, and there you have it! Voilà an instant article!”

This is clearly against the Global Professional Standards that should be maintained by anyone in this industry. No wonder there’s so much junk out there that you have to wade through when doing a proper search for something you’re interested in!

It’s one thing to do research on a product you are selling but it’s another one just take an article that someone has written and rephrase it, line by line to fit your needs. I know that there are people that have made a lot of money in Internet marketing and there are those who want to make a lot of money in this industry, but this isn’t right.

And here’s something you may want to consider, a standard by which you may judge whether something is right or wrong: anybody who claims that you can make instant cash, and then teaches you an unethical method to get it, should be avoided.

If you have purchased a program from any of these big-name gurus who openly flaunts an unethical method of reaching the goal, I would send it back and demand a refund. Remember the 10 Commandments, at least the one that says “thou shalt not steal?” That’s what plagiarism is-stealing.

Every commandment given has a blessing and a curse associated with it. After 3500 years you would think that we would see the wisdom of following all of the 10 Commandments. But alas, we only think about today and a quick buck would sure make a nice change in our life. “To heck with the Commandments, I need to pay the power company.”

And so our society slips a little bit lower and we wonder why we feel like were being cursed.

Why cut off the source of future growth?

Any company who adopts this mentality is doomed until it realizes what it’s done. I know there are accountants and bean counters and boards to answer to, and at first it may look like a good decision: an instant drop of expenses of anywhere from 2 to 15%. But the question is, how are they going to replace it?

As an illustration let’s say a company spends 10% of its revenue on advertising (remember this is only an example). A $2,000,000 a year company would then spend approximately $200,000 generating new business. So by eliminating this expense how are they going to generate that $2,000,000 per year?

For a time it will seem to work. They have existing customers and top of the mind awareness at the moment. But that moment is short lied. Top of the mind awareness is obviously key to any advertising program. The next company that advertises in their market will achieve that top of the mind awareness and the customer will be gone.

In a very short time the company that eliminated its advertising budget will be far worse off and really scrambling as to what to do now. If there was anything that should be increased during an economic downturn is the advertising and marketing budgets.

Well, enough of this analysis, let’s figure out our next step of action. You need to find leads. You need new customers. You need more sales.

My name is Kelly Smith and I created this website to introduce myself to you and share with you how I can help your company achieve its marketing goals. My story can be accessed on another page but I will just tell you shortly that I have been involved in some sort of marketing all my life.

I now focused almost exclusively on Internet marketing for companies like yours. The Internet provides the most interesting and powerful resource available to anyone seeking to do any kind of marketing: instantaneous accurate feedback.

If someone buys a yellow page ad they will know when someone calls from that ad because it usually mentioned in the conversation. But what they don’t know is how many people saw the ad. The same is true with a billboard, a radio ad, a newspaper ad or a direct mail program, etc.

Yes there are all kinds of statistics generated to try to show if you are within the “norm” of expectations regarding the program. But you don’t know exactly what is happening. That is not true with Internet advertising or marketing.

I know I’m probably preaching to the choir here but I will remind you that with powerful tracking programs you can know exactly how many people saw your advertisement, what country they live in, what state or even zip code they live in, which website they saw it on, what keywords they used to find you and even what was the resolution of their monitor be viewed on (which I’ve never really figured out why they even bother with that one!).

The fact of the matter is that you can know to the penny how much profit you have made from that advertisement and it is at least 99% accurate. There is no other method of marketing they can reach anywhere close to that statistic.

That is why I have devoted the last couple years investing in the education of what Internet marketing can do. Along the way has been an amazing journey, a fluid one with many changes and surprises.

I have found that some of the simplest things can reap millions of dollars. I have also found that many of the things promising great results produced little.

Here’s a simple hard-nosed fact: no one in the world knows exactly how to market your site. Anybody who tells you that they do is lying. Now of course there are some that have devoted quite a bit of time and effort to us particular market and they may know something important about it but I’m here to tell you that they still do not know 100% the best way to market your website, business, products or service.

I suppose there are a number of reasons for that but I would liken it unto going fishing in the ocean. You have a fast almost infinite horizon of possibilities and you’re trying to narrow it down to a single school of fish. It’s impossible to finish the entire ocean it once. Everyone who has tried has gone broke.

The first thing is to determine exactly what type of fish you wish to attract. Are we going after Sardines? Dolphins? Swordfish? Octopus? Clams? Halibut? Tuna? Whales? And what exact type of any of those “fish” are the most desirable or profitable?

I have seen many a company, parenthetically speaking, rent a boat and head out into the Internet ocean loaded with bait, come back empty-handed. But unlike the traditional fishing industry where experienced fishermen can tell you exactly where to go and what type of bait to use, in our Internet ocean analogy, there is hardly anyone who knows the answer.

Why am I telling you this? Why am I who have created a website telling you I can help you in your business by marketing on the Internet but there aren’t any experienced guides to go to?

I may not know exactly where to go to find the fish you are looking for but I know how to find out where to go. Of course we all have some idea where to go and we will explore all of those possibilities but experience has shown that a surprise awaits you. And it’s always a fun experience.

And here’s the really interesting thing: the Internet isn’t just one thing. Yellow Pages are. So are billboards and direct mail pieces. But the Internet is still vastly untapped. There are many many ways to market on the Internet and MILLIONS of places to go! Once we find that “school of fish” that is your target market, we will help you pull in netloads of customers over and over again!

So what is the next step here? What is the next plan of action? Send me your basic information and I will contact you about how I think I can serve you best. Please be assured I’m not here to send you spam or junk mail any kind. I’m not sell your information to anyone, this is for my company’s eyes only.

My team is here and ready to help you increase your profits and improve your business in more ways than one. You will see what I mean as soon as you start working with us. And it also doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to reach people in a single zip code or multiple countries at once, we know how to do what is needed to find those leads and customers you are looking for.

What would your business be like if you could increase the number of new customers you have by 2%? How about 5%? How about 25%? Or even 150%? Anything is possible with the correct marketing campaign. We are here to help you create that campaign and although we certainly have to put in a disclaimer that we can’t promise results like that, we do promise we will do everything we can to help you reach your goals.

Thank you. I look forward to visiting with you and I mostly look forward to seeing a smile on your face knowing that this was an excellent decision in hiring our company.