Marketing Lies Exposed – Why What You Are Doing is Completely Wrong

I’m going to be blunt today.

Something is bothering me. I don’t get bothered easily, but I’ll tell you that when I take a look at the marketing methods of many an internet marketing student, I cringe. Many people who are selling on the net have really no idea what they are doing.

For example, today I was just browsing some marketing Facebook groups I’m subscribed to. As I skimmed over the pages, I literally cringed at what I saw. Almost every post, without fail, on most of these groups was some sort of advertisement for a product, opporunity or service. And the ads reminded me of some of those spam emails I sometimes get. Honestly!

And this is where most marketers fall flat on their pretty little faces.

Why?

Let’s break it down to a simple statement. Here is a typical rundown of what the amateur network marketer – or any small home-business owner – does that almost completely destroys their chances of credibility or long-term profit. And this is often what they are told to do from their “upline” or marketing group:

1) They try to sell their product or service first.

Yes, there is only one step above, this is not a joke. Look at what it says and think about it. Here it is again:

“They try to sell their product or service first.”

Think about this for a moment before reading further. Why would this be a problem?

To answer this, take a look at what you are doing when you use Google, Yahoo, any of the search engines or social networking. What is your real purpose in using them? What are you looking for? What is everyone looking for? And what makes these search devices so popular? What is your real purpose in using them in general?

Stop and think about it.

If you thought about it, you would discover that you are looking for information on a topic that interests you.

Before you roll your eyes at that and dismiss it as overly-simplistic, just sit it out. And if you have read my other posts here, you will know that I don’t jerk people around. I’m direct and everything has an explanation.

Back to the search engines. Your whole purpose in using these search engines is to find information on something that interests you. This is why Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., are so widely popular. There is a virtually unlimited stack of free information out there on any topic you can imagine. And people are hungry for that info. Google et al show the way.

Can you now see how this relates to the mistake amateur marketers are making when “They try to sell their product first” ?

And who wants to be “sold to?”

NOBODY!

You hate it, I hate it, we all hate it, yet most marketers out there are doing exactly that.

So let’s puttwo and two together. You have to realize that …

People go online to find INFORMATION, NOT to be sold a product.

This is critical to understand, so I will repeat it again here.

People go online to find INFORMATION, NOT to be sold a product.

Yet, everywhere I go, I see everyone hocking their stuff, screaming in a marketplace full of other screaming marketers who, by this own behavioral evidence, don’t know what works.

This is why I cringe when I see “NEW OPPORTUNITY” or “JOIN MY GROUP” or other “screaming” ads scrawled all over the walls of Facebook by everyone in the group. It causes me great distress for several reasons:

1) Almost none of the screaming ads I see in these places offer users a BENEFIT (see my other articles for much more information on this).
2) It doesn’t answer “what’s in it for me?”
3) This kind of approach ads ZERO informational value to your prospect.
4) It blends in with every other SCREAMING ad.
5) It plain doesn’t work, or the leads trickle in at best. And that can be discouraging.

Okay, so what do you do if you don’t sell your product first? What is the solution to this “Marketing Lie” ?

Give away an abundance of free information, and then sell your product, service or opportunity on the back end.

This works so well for several reasons. Remember, people are looking for INFORMATION, NOT to be sold on your product:

1) You establish yourself as a credible source. People tend to TRUST those who give away things without agenda.

2) People are less resistant to you because you are being DIFFERENT. You aren’t like all of the rest of the droning marketers out there trying to shove  a product down everybody’s throats. You are demonstrating GENEROSITY and teaching people how to solve their problems. That is attractive.

3) When you demonstrate you are an abundant supply of free information, people will become even more hungry. The more they taste, the more they want. You will become “the guy/gal” to go to.

4)  Since you are a trusted resource, you will establish a relationship (using email capture forms or daily updates) with your audience and they will want to give back to you under the Law of Reciprocity.

Robert Cialdini in his classic book Influence: Science and Practice talks about this. I highly recommend you read it. I will also be talking about how it relates to marketing right here in future blog posts.

Note that I’m not saying “don’t EVER sell your product or service”, and I’m definitely not saying this is a universal rule for every marketing situation. Afterall, sometimes, when you want a spoon, you just want a spoon, so you buy one.

My point is – if you want to become credible and profitable in the long term,  get the order of events right. Information first, selling second. It’s been shown that the person who gives away the information first then sells on the backend is much more successful than any “fruit stand” marketer who shouts like everyone else.

Are there times when people are going online just to buy something? Yes, of course, as I explained with the spoon example above. There would be financial chaos if everybody purely went online ONLY to find information.

Just remember - you must approach the situation as someone who is giving away information, “how to’s” and solution providing.

Hint: the first thing on almost everybody’s mind when they are about to make a purchase online is “is this purchase worth it? Is it money well-spent?” Provide them them informative answers and you’ll see things change in a positive direction.

This is why Amazon has their user reviews and eBay has a star-rating system. It’s why there are countless review sites out there. We have all become informants for each other and it is what we have come to expect. We fully expect to find information on our topic of interest out there. Without it, we are reluctant to use our plastic.

And when you provide it, you are in big time!

By the way – you may be asking, “what do I write about? What kind of information do people want?”

We will go into that in another blog post, but I’ll give you a preview. What kinds of questions do you ask about your own field, or what did you want answered when you first started out? These are the kinds of questions you need to answer and provide others.

Lastly, sign up for my 7 Day Mini-Course. I explain much more on what you need to do to start enjoying real results.

Until next time!

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Tagged as: home business owner, hype, marketing lies, network marketer, what doesn't work