| Copyright © 2004, John Calder |


Take a short break from your daily grind and consider the following questions

- Do you spend large amounts of time and money trying to figure out why Google prefers someone else's site over yours?

- Are you on a never ending quest for a magic trick that can help you blow past the 800+ pay per click competitors in your keyword category?

- Do Page Rank fluctuations strike fear in your heart?

If the above applies to you, and if you still aren't seeing the results you desire, you've got a clear case of "marketing paralysis". Don't worry, though. It's not fatal when treated early. So, what's the cure, you say?

The cure is: Perspective.

Internet Marketing (as currently taught) paints a very narrow view of your strategic options. The books and courses you study tout search optimization and pay per click marketing as the holy grails of profit when, in fact, those methods may not represent the fastest and most appropriate way to generate targeted leads for your product.

The Internet: Just One Small Slice of Media Publicity

Take out a Post-It Note and write the word "Publicity" down in big, bold letters, then stick it on your monitor. When you get stuck in a rut, take a look at that word and let yourself conjure up all the ideas, images and associated meanings surrounding it.

Once you complete that exercise, remind yourself of the following: Your status as an online entrepreneur does not preclude you from exploring advertising outlets in other media. Internet Marketing represents only one subset under the general category of publicity.

The Internet's distinction as an entity, apart from traditional media, grows increasingly arbitrary with each passing day. If you want to know what fuels massive search activity, and what creates legendary domain names, pay attention to the offline media of print, radio and television.

You see, those of us who work online all day are accustomed to using the Internet for just about everything. A large portion of our desired market searches on random impulse generated by some outside stimulus. This stimulus can originate from a news story, a new song on the radio, a magazine advertisement or even a subject of interest overheard in conversation.

The Holistic Approach

My intent is not to sway your favor towards one avenue of marketing over another. Instead, I offer you a challenge: take the time to examine the interrelationships among all forms of media. In fact, just pick a subject (or product) of interest and follow its path through the chain of publicity.

For example, when someone sends you a referral to a new web site, ask them how they found out about that site. Did they stumble across it via the search engines or does the site already have a viral tool in place to generate leads? If the site does have a viral tool in place, how did they generate their first visitors to trigger that flood? Do they have a pay per click campaign running? Did they send out a press release? Place a small ad in the back of a magazine?

Just put on your detective hat and reverse engineer these paths. Inevitably, you will discover the small streams of exposure which lead to the flood.



John Calder is the owner/editor of The Ezine Dot Net.
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