Internet Marketing Explained

I’m a Social Media Marketing Guy. Won’t apologize for it, it’s how I make my living. But that means something way different than “Internet Marketing Guy.”

While we at Area 224 fashion ourselves as being in the “Social Media Marketing” camp, we study the other animal quite a bit. There’s nothing wrong with the “Internet Marketing” approach – but the two can look at the same thing from completely different perspectives. For instance:

The List Is Gold.

If you hear that phrase, you are more than likely hearing from someone in Internet Marketing. Why?

Internet Marketing focuses first and foremost on the use of the “Squeeze Page.”

Most of these Modern Squeeze Pages have a couple things in common:

Numbers – almost always pulled from someone’s online marketing history (selling products through a service like Clickbank). For instance, this person made exactly $1,291 in 24 hours.

Video – there is almost always a video on “auto-play.”

Email “Capture” – this is where the gravy is for Internet Marketing. Often, the next marketing “thing” – a free report, access to another video, or a special presentation – is a quid pro quo. The quid is your email address, and the quo is the report.

You have just been “squeezed.” It’s not a good thing, it’s not a bad thing. It just is.

Monetizing the List.

We have talked here about how we think the “Sales Funnel” is dead. That pertains to Social Media Marketing and, we think, Facebook Marketing as well.

Sidebar: You are probably seeing scores of ads on Facebook, asking you to “Like” a certain page. While Internet Marketers ARE applying “Sales Funnel” tactics to Facebook Marketing, the reality is that the buying public can do – and IS DOING – a ton of search on their own while on Facebook. An estimated 60% of people who “Like” a page will never visit that page again; meaning that things like “context” and “content” on the part of brands, individual and business, is more important than using Facebook to grab a list.

Here’s where Internet Marketing practices focus much more on pure numbers than Social Media Marketing does. By pure numbers, here’s an example of what we were asked by an Internet Marketer (one with decent notoriety and, by our own estimate, a list of greater than 100,000 email addresses), while we were working on the launch of our 12 Minute Marketing service.

• How big is your list?
• Who is your copy writer?
• What does the autoresponder sequence look like?
• Do you have any testimonials?
• What sort of traffic have you generated for these testimonials?
• Can you show the revenue generated through your system?

It’s not a good thing. It’s not a bad thing. It just is.

What the true Internet Marketers do is this:

1. Squeeze you into a list.
2. Pepper you with messages from their “autoresponder” (aWeber and GetResponse are two of the biggies).
3. Get you to either convert into a paying customer or unsubscribe.
4. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This exact same Internet Marketer listed above has, through his “empire,” sent us no less than 5 different product offers in a single day. In many cases, once you “opt-in” to one list, they can legally opt you into other lists of theirs at the same time. This can be, for the prospect, quite painful if someone has dozens of products they are promoting.

Return on Investment.

This one is, honestly, the most DANGEROUS number in Internet Marketing.

Internet Marketer Frank Kern (he’s everywhere, made tons of money, all that stuff) claimed the following in one of his recent emails:

“Anyway – I’ve spent over $44K on Facebook ads so far, and I’ve BROUGHT IN $160,000.00 IN SALES. I’ve tracked everything, and my Facebook campaigns have brought in almost 400% return on investment.” (Emphasis his.)

Won’t argue with his spend, won’t argue with his sales revenue. BUT…

This is ROI in a vacuum – very VERY popular in Internet Marketing circles.

What’s missing? Lots:

• Spend on other channels.
• Email marketing spend.
• PPC ad buy on Google, elsewhere.
• Cost of doing business.
• Brand equity already built up through Oprah-like notoriety.

This reminds us of Venture Capital vs. Angel Investing. Here’s why…

Back when we were running the startup – when we weren’t “pre-revenue” but we weren’t in the 7-figures, we were in “No Man’s Land.” VC firms were not interested in an investment because we didn’t have the “revenue run rate” they needed to justify working with us. Angel Investors were more likely to get involved, but their willingness (in 2006 and 2007) hinged, honestly, on whether or not we were a biotech firm. (Back then, that was the number one question.) Education Technology was not a proven concept and, thus, we found ourselves stuck, and thus we bootstrapped.

All About The Numbers.

All numbers in Internet Marketing are, again, DANGEROUS.

We have purchased Information Products pretty often – to research the marketing approach, to see what is out there, and to understand the competition. We have never purchased ones based solely on numerical claims: “I made 1,684,293.37 in 4 months” must, somewhere on the site, have the disclaimer that says “your experience may vary.”

What is absolutely missing from the Internet Marketing equation that IS present in the Social Media Marketing equation is “Social Proof.”

Internet Marketers will argue that, for them, Social Proof is in the NUMBERS. Number of Facebook fans (and, often, cost per click to get those fans). Number of Twitter followers, though some Internet Marketing people have left Twitter and don’t plan on coming back “because the ROI isn’t there.”

Social Media Marketers – again, put me in this camp – will focus more on Interaction, Conversation, Engagement. Which can be squishy – but it is easy to tell if an Internet Marketer is NOT “engaging” on social media, just by following for a little while and seeing whether their interaction is automated, whether they are starting conversations and not finishing them, and whether they are friending and following just for the sake of spam-like behavior.

We’ll boil it all down to two simple “equations,” and we invite your comments to tell us whether or not we are on target.

Internet Marketing = How Do I Sell Stuff?

Social Media Marketing = How Do I Connect With People?