The Physics of Internet Marketing
| Category: Marketing | Date: 2001-05-07 |
Isaac Newton envisioned the universe as a giant clock, set in motion by a Creator with certain immutable laws. It shouldn't take an apple on the head to realize that certain rules apply to net marketing as well:
1) Inertia 2) Motion vs. Action 3) Momentum
1) Inertia: "A webmaster, once married to his ways, is unlikely to change unless an outside force intervenes"
We webmasters are an unusual breed. What we create is perfect to us. But others just don't seem to find that 25k animated gif on the front page as exciting. The countless hours that we spend on design and content condition us to accept our site as immaculate. We don't want to hear that our page loads in 2 minutes, or that it doesn't fit on 640x480 resolution, or that our Midi file is crashing browsers. The best way to break through Inertia is feedback.
A few months ago, it took a site review at the Attraction Marketing Board for me to realize how visitor-unfriendly Goldvisions was. For example, I had a Shockwave movie on my front page that crashed AOL browsers. I also discovered that my site varied drastically on IE versus Netscape browsers. It was painful to part with the old design, but it was much better that continuing with a site only 50% of my visitors could appreciate. Gather some courage and get your site reviewed; and take the criticism in stride.
2) Motion vs. Action
motion: "a set of tasks that may or may not be goal-directed and organized"
action: "an organized set of tasks that is directed toward achieving a specific goal"
Stop now and think for a moment: how organized and how goal- directed has your promotion campaign been? Do you move randomly from site to site adding your link, or maybe you purchase advertising ads all over the net without tracking response rate? Perhaps you have a few link partners without a clue as to how much traffic they send you.
If you are doing any of the above, you are going through "motions" and your promotion campaign is unlikely to be efficient or fruitful. There is a misleading sense of fulfillment that comes with hitting that "add url" button 10 times a day, but it shouldn't end there. Motion promotion is the opiate of the web people.
Action promotion is goal-directed and organized. Carefully watch your link referrals, banner campaigns, and ezine ads for response. Use your log analyzer to monitor the referrers. Keeping a daily promotion log is imperative. I believe the reason I'm not listed in Yahoo! is because I submitted more than once too soon. How could I have known? I didn't keep a record of the first submission. Also, keep a careful written record of your link partners and the monthly traffic that they send to your site. Finally, keep an email list of editors to send articles to on a regular basis. The effort to organize your promotion campaign pays for itself a 100 times over in the long run.
3) Momentum: "Success breeds Success"
"when 80% of your online time is spent on promotion you are on the road to success"-Michael Wong (http://www.eboz.com)
Have you ever thought to yourself: "Man, even if I get 5 subscribers a day, it'll be 5 years before I get 10000 on my list." But the truth is that once you have an effective promotion plan, the momentum builds. Success breeds Success. As you gain notoriety, other webmasters will link you, your articles will be published by unknowns, and word-of-mouth advertising will take effect. You'll also find that most of your time will be spent innovating and cross-promoting rather than redesigning or reinventing your site.
The beauty of the Internet is that there is room enough for everybody and the potential is nearly unlimited. Anyone who is willing to work hard and innovate is on their way to success. Just remember, break the inertia, develop an action plan, and watch the momentum kick in.
About the author
Fawad Ahmed is webmaster of Goldvisions Online Success Community goldvisions.com and a third year medical student at the University of Florida. To subscribe to the weekly Traffic-Builder, send a blank email to goldvisions-subscribe@egroups.com
:To contact see details below.
webmaster@goldvisions.com
http://www.goldvisions.com
1) Inertia 2) Motion vs. Action 3) Momentum
1) Inertia: "A webmaster, once married to his ways, is unlikely to change unless an outside force intervenes"
We webmasters are an unusual breed. What we create is perfect to us. But others just don't seem to find that 25k animated gif on the front page as exciting. The countless hours that we spend on design and content condition us to accept our site as immaculate. We don't want to hear that our page loads in 2 minutes, or that it doesn't fit on 640x480 resolution, or that our Midi file is crashing browsers. The best way to break through Inertia is feedback.
A few months ago, it took a site review at the Attraction Marketing Board for me to realize how visitor-unfriendly Goldvisions was. For example, I had a Shockwave movie on my front page that crashed AOL browsers. I also discovered that my site varied drastically on IE versus Netscape browsers. It was painful to part with the old design, but it was much better that continuing with a site only 50% of my visitors could appreciate. Gather some courage and get your site reviewed; and take the criticism in stride.
2) Motion vs. Action
motion: "a set of tasks that may or may not be goal-directed and organized"
action: "an organized set of tasks that is directed toward achieving a specific goal"
Stop now and think for a moment: how organized and how goal- directed has your promotion campaign been? Do you move randomly from site to site adding your link, or maybe you purchase advertising ads all over the net without tracking response rate? Perhaps you have a few link partners without a clue as to how much traffic they send you.
If you are doing any of the above, you are going through "motions" and your promotion campaign is unlikely to be efficient or fruitful. There is a misleading sense of fulfillment that comes with hitting that "add url" button 10 times a day, but it shouldn't end there. Motion promotion is the opiate of the web people.
Action promotion is goal-directed and organized. Carefully watch your link referrals, banner campaigns, and ezine ads for response. Use your log analyzer to monitor the referrers. Keeping a daily promotion log is imperative. I believe the reason I'm not listed in Yahoo! is because I submitted more than once too soon. How could I have known? I didn't keep a record of the first submission. Also, keep a careful written record of your link partners and the monthly traffic that they send to your site. Finally, keep an email list of editors to send articles to on a regular basis. The effort to organize your promotion campaign pays for itself a 100 times over in the long run.
3) Momentum: "Success breeds Success"
"when 80% of your online time is spent on promotion you are on the road to success"-Michael Wong (http://www.eboz.com)
Have you ever thought to yourself: "Man, even if I get 5 subscribers a day, it'll be 5 years before I get 10000 on my list." But the truth is that once you have an effective promotion plan, the momentum builds. Success breeds Success. As you gain notoriety, other webmasters will link you, your articles will be published by unknowns, and word-of-mouth advertising will take effect. You'll also find that most of your time will be spent innovating and cross-promoting rather than redesigning or reinventing your site.
The beauty of the Internet is that there is room enough for everybody and the potential is nearly unlimited. Anyone who is willing to work hard and innovate is on their way to success. Just remember, break the inertia, develop an action plan, and watch the momentum kick in.
About the author
Fawad Ahmed is webmaster of Goldvisions Online Success Community goldvisions.com and a third year medical student at the University of Florida. To subscribe to the weekly Traffic-Builder, send a blank email to goldvisions-subscribe@egroups.com
:To contact see details below.
webmaster@goldvisions.com
http://www.goldvisions.com
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