The Liars Have Been Marketing Online Since 1996
By Patricia Mayo • Apr 29th, 2008 • Category: Persuasionby Patricia Mayo
Here’s a news flash - the quicker information can spread on a medium, the faster that medium evolves. Online marketers who have been successful since the 90’s don’t know jack.
Ok, maybe that’s a little too broad stroke, but if they’re touting techniques that catapulted them to success way back in the 90’s - those techniques won’t work quite as wildly well today. Don’t drink their kool-aid.
Or at least, don’t drink their kool-aid plain.
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
Let me know if this story sounds familiar to you.
When I got online way back in 1994, I didn’t know bubkiss about online marketing. I actually first started out a couple years later with a graphic design business… and that didn’t go anywhere big.
Then I tried just doing graphics as a business… and that didn’t go anywhere big. Then I tried starting a magazine… and that didn’t go anywhere big.
So I decided that doing a real business online wasn’t going to work, and I started looking into Internet marketing. Long story short, none of those “turnkey Internet business” plans or affiliate marketing blueprints didn’t work either - except those failed spectacularly with 0 earnings, where my businesses at least brought in some money.
What was I missing? For the longest time, I just didn’t get it. How could all these guys be so successful online, while I’m still sitting here scratching my head?
…Try and Try Again.
You know what I was doing wrong? I was drinking their kool-aid plain. Have you ever had kool-aid without sugar? It’s gross.
They always say “just do exactly what we do and you will see success.” What they fail to tell you is those techniques are ancient history in terms of what works online.
Way back when they were successful, the largest majority of people online (and hence the largest online target market) also didn’t know bubkiss about online marketing. They were easily led.
Now, guess what - that largest majority of users who were newbies way back in the 90’s, are now the largest majority of users… except they’re not newbies anymore. They are not easily led. In fact, they downright hate anything that remotely resembles a marketing dinosaur.
Blowing Bubbles
Remember the dot com bubble? Basically, all those companies got too big for their britches, didn’t evolve with their market (the Internet), and caved. That’s every bubble in a nutshell.
Look at the media bubbles - newspapers, music, television. The housing bubble. The stock market bubble. The online ads bubbles. They’re all doing the same thing.
They are all failing because they are not evolving with their market. Even direct response and advertising are going through the same evolve-or-die process right now.
What makes you think the online marketing bubble didn’t happen years ago?
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Trisha, @mayobrains on Twitter
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Patricia Mayo is an entrepreneur with way too much experience online. Seriously, it's not healthy. Feel free to follow on Twitter, LiveJournal, MySpace, Facebook, Tribe, LinkedIn, or Plaxo Pulse. If that isn't enough, there are many more ways to reach out and touch her at MayoBrains.com.
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Yes, yes, yes. The MMO crowd is growing like crazy, precisely ecause the new newbies are drinking the koolaid in record amounts. The secret is not to find a way to make money with an online business, the secret is to make money with a business that is online.
You caught that eh? =D
Loved this. I’m really on a hate jag lately with the “IM” crowd anyway, so thanks for fueling THAT fire. Lately I just automatically do not follow back IM-types on twitter. I don’t know why they keep following me.
Especially this whole “problogging” thing pisses me off. Talk about the tail wagging the dog!
Thanks, Remarkablogger, for pointing me to a well-timed article.
I continually try to help my real estate colleagues see that worked so profitably in the ’90s is not good enough. The digital immigrants are no longer online newbies. The digital natives see the limitations in our delivery systems.
And yet, the majority of real estate agents struggle with the complexities of using email effectively. They are drinking the kool-aid by the gallon.
Oh - My - GAWD you have no idea - and SOOO have it right about the tail wagging the dog!
Ads do not support blogs. Blogs support business!!
You are so right Kathy! One of my clients is actually a Realtor in California. He knows that the “traditional” ways don’t work, and when I was doing the initial consultation, he took me on a “tour of FAIL” with all his competitors and whatnot.
We had a great laugh.
I was right with you all the way up to Michael and Trisha ragging on problogger and ad-supported blogs in the comments.
Sorry, but you lost me there. I don’t see how ProBlogging is anything like this at all. Darren himself would never ask anyone to “drink his koolaid” (I have never even seen the drink, must be an american thing). You can’t be thinking he is stuck in the 90’s either?
Problogging doesn’t necessarily have to be the same as the MMO guys, just as copywriting doesn’t have to be snake oil. Please don’t ruin your point by offending the good guys with crude stereotypes.
While I am disagreeing, there are a ton of tactics from the 90’s that work. Heck, I am using copywriting techniques developed in the beginning of direct marketing. If all you use is brand new to the expense of the stuff that works just because it’s cutting edge then you have drunk more kool aid than anyone else.
I hear what you’re saying Chris, but I feel you may have missed the point on both counts. We weren’t talking about ProBlogger, we were talking about “problogging” - ad supported revenue models have consistently failed the “little guy” without some serious determination and self-cloning. One blog with ads isn’t going to make much money anymore - not like it did in the 90’s.
My point in this entry is that although the tactics used in the 90’s may still be effective, they won’t be as effective now as they were then. Additionally, we need to evolve those ideas in order to make them anywhere near as effective.
And FYI, I’m using psychological manipulation tactics known since the 30’s - I’ve just shifted the medium a bit and adapted it for today’s mindset. I don’t subscribe to an “all or nothing” mindset Chris. All in all, my message was “don’t drink it plain.”
I am all about helping the little guy, and remember Darren made his blogs in the recent 2000’s not in the mid 90’s. There are several names I could point to who launched their blogs in the last year who do well out of ads. Plus you could say the same about any business, you need determination and lots of little guys go under. What works for some will not suit others, but that doesn’t mean the whole model is broken.
I agree that tactics have to evolve, but I would never want people to come away thinking that old = ineffective. We all have to try and see what works for us. So I guess I am saying “don’t drink it plain, AND don’t just its taste till you have tried it”