Internet Marketing, The Never ending Marathon

Ever get the look …The look when discussing intrernet marketing and its potentialwith clients.  The look that says “what are you talking about?”  The incredulous look about what it really takes to be successful marketing on the internet.

Internet Marketing is nothing short of a big race.  If you are a brand new website, your competitors already on the web are already ahead of you.  If this race were across the United States and we are all trying to get to California from New York, your competition can be anywhere from Ohio to Nevada.  So by the time your website is created and launched, your competition still holds a wide advantage in the “race to California.”

Catching up is no small task.  You have to go much faster and much smarter to catch up, overtake your competitors, and then stay ahead for the long run.

What does a marathoner need to succeed?  Well, let’s start with the basics.  How about air and water?

Website Traffic to your site is the air you breathe.  Not all traffic is good traffic.  Spam is like smog so your website can’t be about that.  Too much spam, like smog, can actually incapacitate you.  So you only want good air or good traffic.

Search Engines are the water for this marathon.  You need the Search Engines if you want to be in the game and at your peak performance.  Google is your Gatorade, Yahoo is  your Powerade and MSN is your Aquafina.  I’ll let you draw your own conclusions as to which water I prefer!  Bottom line … all work … various degrees of benefit to the “marathoner.”

Bottom line:  The marathon runner needs the best air in his lungs and the best water available for peak performance.  The website marathon needs good traffic (air) and the search engines (water) to provide the visibility for that traffic.  No business website with business objectives can survive with its own form of air and water.

So who out there has proven themselves to be the best internet marketers, the ones who have developed the  best access to air and water.  Believe it or not, it’s the Porn Industry.  It is the Porn Industry that is miles ahead of the rest in all forms of internet marketing.

It’s a taboo subject to be talking about the Porn Industry in a positive way.  I am in no way condoning it or promoting it here.  We are strictly looking at them in terms of their clear leadership in internet marketing. 

The history clearly shows that many of the internet marketing techniques used today were used by the Porn Industry a decade ago. 

For instance, they have already used and mostly stopped using Email marketing .  When was the last time you saw your inbox populated by advertisements for porn.  More likely, you  see all manner of products being pitched through email now.  The Porn Industry has already move way beyond this.

The Porn Industry was the first to use advance methodologies like Affiliate Markteting .  They incentivize affiliates with as much as 60% of sale revenue for promoting their products and services.

Similarly they use “Split Testing” by creating several versions of the same content and provide their affilitates a choice of all of these various offerings.  By measuring the results, highly reliable data is achieved to focus on only those offerings that are proving successful … all done through affiliates.

In doing so, they have recognized the value of having a steady stream of fresh content … some literally change up their content every single day!

They test and measure … test and measure … always keeping the website fresh and always including the best performing content.

The website must perform.  People need to find it, bookmark it and return with their credit card to buy more and more product.  It is only through the constant feedback loop that they know what works and what doesn’t.  What they are clicking on and what they are skimming over.

So, in this way, they create their own traffic and sales.  In doing so, they continue to get tons of traffic from search engines … why? … because they are always adding new and fresh content inside and outside of the website.  This generates activity and the activity is picked up by the search engines in all of the methods being used to rate websites and rank them accordingly.

Other examples of the Porn Industry lead in online marketing methodology:

1.    Streaming Video … they beat YouTube by 10 years at least.

2.    Search Engines – they created them for their own Adult Networks before the first online search on Google was even attempted.

3.    Directory Listings – used widely now by “SEO Experts” … Adult industry thrived on these listings in the 90’s and still do a ton of business through them now.

4.    Their technology is 5 to 10 years ahead of the "Internet Marketing" Field. They hire some of the most talented artists, programmers, and talent recruiters in the world. They have the technology built to drive hundreds of thousands of visitors to any destination they want, by pressing 1 button.

5.    factor of about 6.8 months. So for 6.8 months, you are making $35 – $50 a month for 6.8 months for 1 – 200 visitors. That is $238 to $325 in revenue for every 1 in 200 visitors. They have this conversion thing down to a tee.

A side note: The major search engines don't want web sites designed for search engines, they want sites designed for VISITORS , they want you to ignore then, and the Stealth Bombers do, and they still benefit. Another interesting concept is that they connect directly to their competitors (they are affiliate of their competition, and make money of course), and to each other in a industry network. This technique of connect to people in your own industry is highly recommended in any internet marketing lesson.

A final point on the Porn Industry and Search Engines

The Major Search Engines do not want web sites designed for search engines.  They want websites created for VISITORS.  They actually want you to ignore them … the Adult industry does exactly that … they ignore Google and focus completely on the Visitor.  The Search Engines will take care of themselves because all they are doing are indexing the most relevant content … the Adult industry takes care of that as a function of what they do every day.

Of course, the Porn Industry has a huge advantage over the rest of us “mortals.”  They rely on viral marketing … the Adult industry has the largest “viral” there is … sex!

Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking could be the most absolute measure of your website and the search engines have taken notice.  Social Bookmarking Sites, like Digg and de.lic.io.us rank your website based on the popularity your website achieves through your own bookmarks or favorites.  Those registering with these services have the benefit of having access to their bookmarks from any computer as they are synced up to the service. 

Social Bookmarking isn’t in the interest of every website or every industry.  If you are selling food, social events … anything of social or passionate value … then it’s a good thing.  If you are selling industrial cleansers, it’s most certainly not a good thing.

The Internet Marketing Marathon is about focus, staying on course, using techniques that are proven, having a map and knowing what your competition is doing & winning, Experimenting in new techniques can help you win this marathon.  Search Engines, Affiliates, Social Bookmarking, Newsletter Marketing are all powerful.  However, none of them are solutions by themselves.  Research, testing, measuring, adjusting in an everlasting loop are all necessary to successfully run this marathon.