I received an email over the weekend from the owner of a website, which I want to share with you. It’s a great example of how people think the normal rules of marketing do not apply to the Internet.

The emailer wrote to me, asking if I could just do a quick marketing job for her.

All she wanted was for me to make her website generate $5,000 a month, every month, without her having to do much; because she’s too busy to update it. She went on to say; “I don’t think it will take much to reach my goal,” before asking if I could do all this as a quick, one-off project.

The site this lady contacted me about is over 4 years old and is really dated.  Despite her efforts over the years, her site gets very little traffic.  It also has very few inlinks for a site of that age.  Oh, and it’s competing for business in one of the most competitive, professionally marketed marketplaces on the Internet; personal development.

Even if the emailer threw thousands at advertising (and there was no suggestion of a marketing budget), to make it profitable would require a total overhaul and a VERY effective short, medium and long term marketing strategy.  It would require ongoing testing and measuring (like all successful marketing.)  The bottom line here is that generating a $5,000 per month income, competing alongside some of the best marketed organisations on the planet for every one of those dollars, is not a quick project.

Internet marketing benefits

There’s no doubt that the Internet and digital communications offer unprecedented marketing, sales and business development opportunities; however, you still need to apply an effective strategy if you want your Internet marketing to succeed.  For example, this blog attracts an average of just over 50 emails for my marketing business, each day (7 days a week.)  It has generated 6 figures in income for my business in the past year –  BUT, this didn’t just happen. It was the result of an effective marketing strategy.

Google announced back in 2008 that it had already indexed over a TRILLION unique URL’s.  That number will have increased massively since then, and it gives you an idea of how many other pages and sites there are, that YOUR prospective clients or customers could be looking at rather than yours.  They may be wasting time on some of those sites or listening to music or tweeting or spending money.  The thing is, you need a strategy if you want to capture their imagination.  You need a strategy if you want them to ‘discover’ you and see how brilliant you are.

Just ‘being online’ is not enough!