Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Why Doesn't My Marketing Campaign Work?
I got a question I got today that I thought might be of interest with you.

A reader has been working an affiliate campaign, trying to get webmasters to post banner ads on their sites to promote an upcoming promotion for that company. The reader was surprised that the campaign wasn't working. He saw his request as a "can't lose" situation for the website owner. All they had to do was post a banner on their site and they would be eligible for $1000 in prizes.

Here's my answer:

"I think your lack of response comes from the fact that as good as this promotion sounds to you, it’s indistinguishable from the many offers that claim that “if you spend five minutes adding our banner to your site, you’ll make tremendous money from all the people who click on it.” The only thing that distinguishes your offer from all the others is that it offers only the recipient MIGHT receive a prize in return.

"About the only webmasters who will consider offers like this one are either webmasters who are so new that they haven’t experienced the lack of success that comes from these “just-add-a-banner-to-your-site” offers, or webmasters who take a gambler’s approach to marketing, jumping on every offer in the hope that the next one will hit the jackpot for them.

"The reality is that just putting up a random banner is not effective. Banner advertising can be effective, but only when:

• the banner is in a location where the target market frequently visit
• the banner addresses a problem that people from that target market have, and does so in a way that raises their curiosity enough to click on it
• the destination of the banner effectively solves the problem

"Looking at the promotion you described, I don’t see a single one of those qualities. I don’t see:

• any mention of the way you selected your target sites; I get the impression you’re sending out to any and all small business sites with the idea that it's conceivable that people from that audience MIGHT also frequent that site
• any specific problem that the target audience is struggling with; I get the impression that the message is just, “here’s a new site you might want to try out”
• any solution to the audience’s problem; it’s just another site like any other site they’re already using

"You expressed surprise that people aren’t putting up the banner because “they have nothing to lose.” In reality, they do have something to lose: their time.

"The five minutes it would take to sign up and post the banner may seem insignificant. But then multiply that by the dozen other offers they’ve received that will take only five minutes of their time each. And add to that the time it will take in the future to log in and check their stats on each offer.

"The time starts to add up. And if they’ve done many of those “five-minute” tasks before and gained absolutely no money from them, they can certainly find more profitable ways to spend their time.

"Rather than viewing an offer from the perspective of “what do they have to lose by signing up for this offer?” I encourage you to view a potential offer on the basis of "what are they assured of gaining?”

"If you plan to continue promoting this offer, I suggest that you make sure you target sites where your target market frequent. Sites that already serve that audience will be more likely to post something that is relevant to the people they already serve than will be sites that simply MIGHT have someone from that target audience wander through.

"You still will have the obstacle that your offer is indistinguishable from the many other similar offers that reach website owners every day. Maybe the company that is running this promotion has additional help to make this more unique."

Shotgun approaches don't pay unless you have the resources to crank your message out to millions of people. The more you can identify your audience and target your message to their most pressing needs, the more responsive you will find them.
Jeff

Labels: marketing

Are You an Internet Marketer Who Hates Marketing?
I can't get out of my head a rant I read yesterday by Clayton Makepeace. Clayton is one of the world's best copywriters and he has an awesome online newsletter in which he gives away a wealth of copywriting and marketing information every day.

Well yesterday he googled himself to see what others were saying about him. As usual, there was a lot of high praise. But one blogger's comments stuck in his craw.

Now, as I said, Clayton gives away tons of free advice every day. This blogger, though, was incensed that, a couple of times a month, Clayton also sends his list an email offering a special discount on one of his products.

"How dare this charlatan ask people to pay money for his expertise. He should share everything he's learned over 20+ years of hard experience absolutely free." Her rant was somewhat along those lines. And Clayton was disgusted.

But one thing he said in his reply rant really stuck in my mind. He said that a lot of Internet marketers really hate marketing. And he's absolutely right.

I even see signs of it in myself.

I've experienced lots of times where I've been hesitant to promote what I have to offer because I didn't want to "dirty myself" by coming across as trying to "persuade" people into buying.

I've experienced lots of times where I've looked at marketing strategies as forms of manipulation.

I've experienced lots of times where I've tried to market by doing nothing more than vaguely hinting that I had something of value available and hoping that people would batter down my doors demanding the chance to buy it.

Maybe you've had the same feelings.

So why do people who look down marketing try to do it for a living?

For the money.

It appeals to that get-rich-quick mentality with a promise of "tricks" that will enable us to shovel in truckloads of money for little effort. It promises that if only we hit on the "secret formula" for successful persuasion, the world's coffers will open up and spill out on us all the money we could ever desire.

And so we dabble in marketing, trying to discover the "tricks" and "secret formulas" while we inwardly suppress a disgust for the whole idea of manipulation that another part of us associates with marketing.

That doesn't have to be, though. Clayton brings up a great point when he quotes marketer Bob King: "Marketing is the art and science of bringing value to consumers’ lives at a price that is insignificant relative to that value."

If we're marketing junk just to make a buck, if we're trying to trick people into buying stuff that isn't worth what they're paying for it, we have every reason to feel ashamed of our "marketing" efforts. That's because we're not really doing marketing. We're scamming people.

But if we are truly bringing people solutions that have far more value to them than we're asking in return, we're not doing anything disagreeable at all. We're providing a great service.

Now don't think I'm advocating that the solution to our love-hate relationship with marketing is that we give away things of great value for next to nothing. Marketing should be neither coercive nor sacrificial.

The solution is to understand intimately the needs of those whom we seek to market to and provide a solution that truly is of value to them. The moment we can do that is the moment that "marketing" turns from distasteful manipulation to an eager exchange of value for value.

Get to know what your customers desire and provide it for them. Do that and you'll never need to worry ever again about how to "coerce" them into buying.
Jeff


P.S. Clayton's newsletter is one I faithfully read every day. I encourage you to check it out. Just click here and enter your name and email address in the banner at the top of the page and you'll get not only his free newsletter, but also four useful ebooks on ways to improve your advertising.

Labels: Clayton Makepeace, copywriting, marketing