Posted on June 26, 2009 - by Greg Poulos

Why IM marketing gimmicks are like “hippie crack”

I’ve been online since 1983, way back in the days of BBS’s, Apple //e’s, and Commodore 64’s, and I’ve been marketing online since 1996. Starting in 2004, I’ve spent over $100,000 on internet marketing (IM) education.

Here’s what I’ve observed: there’s a RIGHT way, and a WRONG way to use IM education.

Here’s the WRONG way, which I’ve been guilty of myself, and this is how I see most people operate:

You learn a new marketing technique, trick, or gimmick. Then you go an implement it, and maybe you make a little money. Hopefully, you make a lot of money. It’s new. It’s exciting. It’s a challenge. It’s cool.

You keep implementing this with varying degrees of success… until the next gimmick comes along. Then you spend time on the new technique, trying it out, making some more money… but you spend less time on the first technique that was working fine just a few months ago. Ultimately, you stop implementing the first technique, focusing on the latest & greatest thing you just learned.

And this cycle repeats, again and again, until you become so overwhelmed, you don’t know where you focus your time.

Why do people operate this way? I think a big part of it has to do with the “high” you get implementing a new marketing technique and watching money come in. Or, it may be the promise and hope of riches based on some great marketing. Or, maybe it’s just a way to keep yourself entertained and away from the otherwise boring “work” you know makes you money.

It’s like people are constantly chasing a “high” or a “buzz” for the next big thing, when all along they have PLENTY of marketing know-how to make 10 figures or more. It’s like an addiction.

Back in my days of following the Grateful Dead, I’d see lines of hippies in the parking lot queued up to buy a balloon of nitrous oxide (laughing gas). We used to call it “hippie crack”, because the hippies would scavenge the parking lot looking for their next balloon fix like fiends.

I think the IM market is kind of like that, with droves of wanna-be marketers looking for their next “hit” of marketing gimmicks, tricks, and techniques.

So what’s the RIGHT way to use all this marketing stuff?

It depends on what your goals are, but here are some thoughts.

First, you don’t need to do everything. As an example, if there are 100 proven ways to make money online, I probably am aware of 80 of them, know enough to implement 50 of them, but only actively use 10 of them. Why? Because those 10 work for me consistently, and they allow me to consistently pull in 7 to 8 figures a year or more in sales.

I don’t need to implement the other 90 tricks. Sure, those extra things might work, but the way I see it, they’ll just create noise in my business and distract me from focusing on what works.

So focus is the issue here.

The only way I would put any time into implementing new marketing techniques on top of what I’m already doing is this way:

First, when you’ve proven that a technique works for yourself, put a system behind it, then find somebody else to implement for you. Hire or outsource.

Only then should you even consider putting time into researching or testing new techniques.

Then, when you find something else that works, put a system behind it and have someone else do it.

Not you.

Again, this gets back to your goals. I’m assuming you want to build a “sellable asset” - a business that runs and grows without you that you have the option to sell one day. It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to sell your business. Unless you want to be forever trapped in Kiyosaki’s “S” quadrant of a self-employed slave, you need to get yourself out of your business.

So, by all means, get educated, spend money on education, and try stuff out. But stay focused and put systems behind what works for you while you investigate new ways to market.

To your success,
Greg Poulos