Attracting The Right Kind of Attention

By Barrett Niehus http://www.freetrainer.com

If you have spent time on internet trying to promote your web site, you have realized that it takes a great deal of work to maintain a constant level of traffic. From search engine submissions to awards and affiliates, promoting your web site takes a significant time investment. As a result you spend hours each day trying to get your traffic numbers to climb. However, question must be asked: Does increase in traffic result in a proportional increase in sales? As many "Dot Coms" have seen in past two years, traffic does not necessarily equal profit. You must target your audience and sell to groups that are most likely to see value and purchase your products.

A child, no more than 3 years old, was starting to saunter across this crazy road. Alone. Reacting instantly, I sped up and got ahead of driver to my left, then slowed dramatically, turned and stopped my car across both lanes to block traffic. Jumping out, I snatched up this tyke just as she was about to cross center line and into oncoming traffic. The timing could not have been closer.

The story gets better.

As I was hurrying toddler to safety of sidewalk I just about stumbled over her younger brother, who was starting to wheel his stroller between parked cars into street, following his sister. Of course, he was safe as traffic was now blocked, and suddenly I felt blessed to have arrived at this critical moment.

Where was mom during all this? You shouldn't have asked:-) She had apparently told her kids to wait on sidewalk while she walked across this major thoroughfare to go into a store. The siblings were simply trying to find her.

What I said to this poor-excuse-for-a-parent you don't want to know and has nothing to do with this article, but what does is that during entire time I was making sure these children were safe (which really wasn't that long) there was a car horn blowing furiously in background.

Guess who?

Yep, disheveled looking driver in next lane. When I returned to my car, he made a point to open his door, stand up and scream at me at top of his lungs (in what I perceived to be Arabic). After witnessing what had happened, he was VERY upset WITH ME because I inconvenienced him! This my friends, is referred to as road rage.

I would assume that most people (and drivers behind him) would have breathed a heavy sigh of relief that neither of these kids were hurt, or worse, killed on that road that day. But this article is not about "most people". It's about "some people" and a phenomena on Internet that is becoming all too commonplace. And I don't like it one bit. It's what I call Road Rage on Information SuperHighway.

The majority of people I come into contact with as customers, resellers (I own 2 affiliate programs), newsletter subscribers and folks who email me with questions or advice, are simply put, wonderful. But since I am communicating with sheer volumes of 'netizens', I am receiving more and more blatantly angry email. I mean kind of ugly verbiage that most people would never have parts to say to your face. And, I'm not alone. I'm in contact with many Internet marketers who are experiencing very same thing.

Here are some recent examples, straight from my email files. Bear with me as I attempt to set these up for you.

I've written, and sell through a popular affiliate program, a best-selling marketing eBook called The Ezine Marketing Machine. The ordering system is state-of-the-art (digital delivery) and extremely dummie-proof. When a customer inputs their final order information on our secure server, they receive a 'Thank You' webpage with simple instructions on how to download their book and bonuses. It's virtually impossible to miss simple process and get instant access to your goods (I send an automated email with same download instructions as back-up), but a minority of customers do. I am only too pleased to quickly assist them and am online to do so from 6:00 am til 9 or 10 pm seven days a week.

However, one particular customer didn't quite "get it" and fired off no less than five emails within an hour. They arrived around 11:00 p.m. when I wasn't online. I've extracted content (verbatim) from three I've kept:

#1. "I've paid $$$ for your program, now what about goods? The info sounds wonderful as does your yada-yada! Why not deliver goods now so a mere morsel like myself may possible take advantage of material you allude to as "Gospel" for success?"

#2. "Is it time to take all this stuff to next level?? I'm prepared to do just that unless you can resolve this TONIGHT."

#3. "Why is this such a hassle?? I sent my $$$ and followed your directions. Where hell is final product?? You "Gurus" appear to be all same. You promise moon and deliver nothing."

To top off his nastiness, he called at midnight and left a totally vile message about what a "#&@*!! thief" I was. Now, what makes this quite humorous is fact that this unfortunately computer-unsavvy person actually had his files entire time, but never knew he had to click to open them:-)