A few days ago I sent out a message to my subscribers about a family emergency that kept me away from virtually everything professionally for about a month. Now that the emergency has passed, I’m working hard to catch up on all my email…
A ginormous task!
It struck me today just how many solicitations I get from other marketers and online business owners about the “latest super-secret weapon” that will send me tons of traffic, help me rake in the bucks, and propel my business to the next level (whatever that may be).
These email messages claim just about everything you can imagine… except maybe making me coffee in the morning and giving me a foot massage!
It’s totally, completely, and utterly ridiculous… and a little sad too.
I think it’s sad because I really wonder how many people fall for the whole “magic bullet” theory of how to make it online. How many people tell themselves that if they could just find that one little thing they would have all the success they want?
Maybe it’s just because I’ve been doing this so long… Maybe it’s because I’ve had to face a lot of life and death issues in the last month… Maybe it’s because there are so many “gurus” out there who don’t have a clue and are leading others astray…
I just get sick of all the hype and B.S.
I get sick of getting the same message about the same product from 150 sources in the same day who all claim to have “the answer”… especially when I’m certain that they wouldn’t know an answer if it hit them squarely in the chops.
And it seems to be getting worse by the day!
Sometimes I get really sick of the language of marketing… but then again, I know that it works when done properly.
When you’re writing a marketing piece, you can’t simply lay out the benefits and walk away. You’ve got to throw in all those key phrases that pull the reader in and make them want to buy your product.
I guess that kind of makes me a hypocrite.
Maybe I just don’t like to be marketed to.
No… I don’t mind that too much because I can learn from others who do it better than me. I’m definitely not too vain to know that there are a lot of other people who are better than me.
Maybe I’d just like to see more originality. It seems to me that anyone who was an expert would try a little harder to develop a USP… but few do.
It would be nice if there were some sort of accreditation people had to have before they could claim to be a guru or a marketing expert. At least then there would be some measure of who you could trust and follow and who was full of crap.
I wonder how far internet marketing will go before marketers will have relegated themselves to the same professional and social statis as a used car salesman... in some circles it’s pretty close already. I don’t like being part of a profession that often lacks integrity and credibility.
Okay… I’ll stop ranting now.
It won’t change anything anyway. All I can to is try to make my tiny corner of the internet marketing world better.
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Tagged with: Marketing
Filed under: Email Marketing • General Online Business • Other Gurus
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If only marketers would do a better job of targeting the appropriate audience with their promos…then they might not have their messages fall onto ears that don’t need to hear them.
That may be part of why we are “hearing hype” when…we simply are not the ears intended for the message.
But great article!
Joseph Ratliff
You make a very good point about targeting audiences… another indication that they really aren’t the gurus they claim to be, if you ask me.
Since it really costs nothing to send email, those hypesters can continuously send those messages without any expectation of a payday (unlike direct mail or advertising).
I really have to wonder how many of them actually generate revenue with all that junk.
I’d bet a year’s income that they make next to nothing.
The sad thing is….They taught to do so from the crap they bought.