Hippo Web Solutions

Internet Marketing, unsurprisingly enough, is the

…marketing of products and services over the internet

according to Wikipedia. But while it’s a relatively new phenomenon by this definition, limited by the amount of time the internet has been in existance, in fact its roots go back a lot further than that. Internet marketing is really just an evolution of Mail Order / Direct Marketing, which has been around for well over a hundred years.

Image courtesy of Heart for Japan

Overview of the Direct Marketing strategy

Yaro Starak recently wrote a very good overview of the elements of an internet business founded on these principles, in which he outlines three steps:

1. Get as much exposure for your business as possible
2. Make the first sale
3. Target these existing customers with higher-value products

The first sale is not where the money is made – its purpose is to convert members of the general public from step 1 into customers, the theory being that once someone has bought something from you once, they are far more likely to buy other stuff further down the line, which is where the real money is made.

I’ve often seen the exact same strategy being used for charity fundraising. The general appeal is usually pretty innocuous, something like

…by giving only £2 a week, you can help save an abandoned puppy / feed a starving child / etc

What they don’t tell you up front is that once you “sign up”, you’ll go on their mailing list and face a never-ending series of much higher-value appeals. Now don’t get me wrong – most charities do a great job, and I in fact support several myself. But this approach does tend to make you a bit cynical once you’ve been exposed to it a few times because it’s somewhat misleading: you, the “customer”, do the right thing, only to find yourself the target of a campaign of heart-rending appeals, and ignoring them is tantamount to saying I don’t care if another child in Africa starves today.

It’s all a bit distasteful

Yes, I’m afraid I do find it distasteful. It’s one thing being on the consumer side of the equation, but I ask myself – is this the way I want to earn a living? Sorry, but no. It’s a bit like the film Glengarry Glen Ross in which an estate agent goes to increasingly desperate lengths to try and sell real estate to prospective customers (great film, by the way, with a great cast).

Apparently I’m not the only one who feels this way – Caroline Middlebrook is also uncomfortable with direct selling. She prefers to employ less direct methods to generate an income: affiliate marketing and displaying advertising on her site. And in fact, I estimate that this is a far more common approach than the one Yaro outlines, not necessarily always due to a conscious decision, but simply because it’s less strategic and easier to adopt.

Incidentally, it’s also the approach that I prefer. So while you can see I have a few ads around and about, and include the odd affiliate link in my posts, I have no intention of implementing a full-on sales funnel on this site. Note that I don’t claim this is a better approach – in fact I believe you can make more money by employing a more direct strategy – I’m just not prepared to do it.

What’s your strategy?

These are not the only ways to make money online of course, but I think they’re two of the most common methods. Do you know of or employ a different strategy? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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