You can't argue this, to succeed you need to differentiate yourself.

Online businesses come and go every day and about 90% fail.

The reasons online businesses fail vary from situation to situation, here's a few:

*It could be that business owner didn't educate themselves properly

*It could be that netreprenuer didn't market correctly

*It could be that webmaster didn't develop a product people were actually willing to pay for

*It could be that newbie didn't spend enough time creating and leveraging right types of relationships

*It could be that inexperienced Internet marketer didn't remember to be thorough and calculated with their product offering, sales copy, packaging, traffic plan, etc.

All of above reasons are valid and one of most common reasons product offering itself fails, is because niche market that business owner is marketing in is semi-saturated and marketer had no "differentiator".

A differentiator is anything that makes your unique selling proposition differ from any other by benefits it delivers to user.

Those benefits need to be itemized in sales copy to make sure prospect will understand what makes offering specific to his/her needs.

A differentiator could simply be a different angle or viewpoint on some problem or product not currently realized by anyone else. How many ebooks have been written about Internet marketing?

Hundreds if not thousands...the ones that make money have easily identifiable differentiators.

A differentiator could be an added bonus to your product offering that prospect can't get anywhere else.

Simple example: Suppose there are 2 products that a prospect is considering purchasing.

*Product offering #1 offers a bonus that can be easily found on Internet.

With any business, credibility is a key element to building trust which should ultimately lead to making a sale.

This is never truer than in Internet marketing for these reasons:

* People don't want to be sold to, they want information.

* People mostly use Internet to get information at no cost, not to purchase a good or service

* People are skeptical about purchasing online for fear of being "taken"

* The "would be" customer most likely has no idea who seller is and isn't guaranteed any type of communication after sale, no matter what website may say about a "guarantee"

* Internet marketing has been around long enough that savvy prospects have seen their share of scams, shoddy products, and outrageous promises and their defenses are heightened because of it

So what does newcomer and mid-level marketer do to gain credibility amidst all this skepticism? Validate their USP (Unique Selling Proposition) by ensuring that their prospect's perception of who they are and what they have to offer is one of quality.

Until sale is made and "prospect turned customer" actually has product in hand, perception of quality is just that, merely perception. Once product is in hand of new customer, perception of quality is purely defined by customer, not seller. How customer views product after sale is made determines his/her perception of quality of product. However, before sale is made, perception of quality is largely determined by seller, and that's where sales are made or lost.

Why is perception of quality determined by seller? Because prospect can't possibly validate a product's quality without owning it...the seller tells prospect what makes product have quality and how it will benefit them. The sales copy on web site, clarity of graphics, proposed benefits product delivers, and overall message that validates USP that is relayed to prospect, all define perception of quality of product as dictated by seller. It is up to prospect to decide whether he/she will believe message that seller is relaying to him/her.

Because of prospect's skepticism, validating USP and establishing credibility can be a chore for newbie and intermediate Internet marketer regardless of quality of product itself. Since newbie or intermediate marketer isn't a "household" Internet marketing name, action needs to be taken to establish online credibility.