Arrgh. . .Those Stupid Internet Marketing Cliches Are True!

If you have read any internet marketing resource ever created, you have no doubt seen simple, one sentence, pot-shot solutions to all of your problems: You will only be successful if you think you are successful. You will make money if you work hard. Think outside of box. Content is king!

. . .If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

How can this possibly help me, you think. These people are just crack-pots! They do not actually have any real help to offer me--just general advice, which really has no practical implications for me and for my business.

This is exactly what I thought and this is now what I see newer marketers and affiliates saying. I was always skeptical of general advice. I thought success stories that ended with an exhortation to "work hard" and "make plans" and "think outside of box" were just plain worthless.

What I now know (what I learned as I slowly became more successful) is that this "common wisdom"--which I initially regarded as foolish and too unspecific--was actually best advice available on internet and it didn't even cost me money.

These simple cliches make up best possible over-arching structure of complex business and marketing plans. They arbitrate decisions of most successful internet marketers. And when marketers decide to be short-sighted and deny these cliches for quicker returns, they are smacked-down and brought to reality or ruin by manifestation of these cliches.

As someone who has received many brutal, unrelenting smack-downs from Internet, I can verify this.

So what is it about these cliches that give them such universal, lasting truth?--They ignore hype. They ignore nuance. They don't marry a fad. And most importantly, they are results-oriented.

Tom called me with a question about how to increase sales from his web site. Despite having spent three thousand dollars to build an attractive web, he wasn't generating leads from his site. Only a small handful of people had contacted him since site went live two months ago.

Do you have a web site? Are you disappointed by number of leads and sales your site is generating?

I asked Tom what percentage of daily or weekly visitors to his site contacted him. He didn't know answer. I asked him how many people visited his site per month. He didn't know. I asked him, how many sales of his books and coaching services had been generated by his web site. He didn't have that information, either.

If you want to improve performance of any marketing effort, whether online or offline, make effort to collect and evaluate results. You can use easily available numbers to help you fix what's not working and improve what is.

Ever go on a diet? How do you tell if your eating and exercise regimens are working? You step on scale and look at number of pounds you've lost or gained. This simple figure gives you truth about success of your dieting efforts. To improve sales, track response to each of your marketing efforts and conversion rates.

1. Response Rates If you spend money on advertising to drive people to your business web site, you want to know how many people responded to your ad and visited your site. If you're only getting a handful of responses, problem could be your ad. Something as simple as changing marketing message you use in your advertising or in your search engine listings could increase your response rate.