Do people fail in internet marketing because they confuse activity with accomplishment?

To further explain myself: I have noticed that over 90% of people seem to have a negative reaction to internet marketing and every time I speak to someone about it there tends to be one negative statement after another. Some people have been at it for years and seen ZERO results while others just started and in a few weeks they are making their first dollar. Why is that?

So it got me thinking, do people actually confuse the work they put in as a gauge for their success? When in actuality, they should gauge their success on what they accomplish in the business instead? It seems rather easy to say you gave it your best shot when you when you really were putting effort in the wrong areas. Curious about your feedback .

 

Without a doubt, today, internet marketing is a brutal area to be in. It was an easy thing to do 10-15 years ago. Today, when you have to compete with hundreds of other websites, businesses or services in almost every niche, chances on succeeding are really limited for almost anyone.

The two things that can help people succeed in IM, in this current state of things, are the quality of their offers or products (which also includes the quality of their squeeze pages or websites) and relentless advertising.

Getting traffic is tough. If you're a new online business, without an ongoing, relentless advertising you won't get any traffic whatsoever. So... the effort should be put: first in the quality of the products or services you are offering and second in an ongoing, relentless advertising (sorry if I sound redundant).

 

If I get you correctly, you claim existence of a correlation between putting less effort and being more negative.
I agree there is such a correlation to some extent. But generalization may not be correct.
Because luck is always an important factor in every single part of the life.
You can't explain every success or fail with effort.

 

Thank you for bringing this up. Being in the right place at the right time (being lucky) is a huge contributor to success. No doubt about that.

 

I'm not sure if it's as much luck as it is determination and attitude. I could be wrong, of course.

I think people run around in circles sometimes because they don't truly know the right way to do things sometimes. It's gurus who've told them they can push a button and make a ton of cash. When that doesn't work, they can engage in a frenzy of trying different things. No focus, too much information. In fact, I think they've read and tried so many different things that they usually feel like they've tried everything. So they throw in the towel, give up and declare it a scam.

 

We have 2 types of efforts,
1- efforts in daily routine (working hard)
2- other efforts. (learning new things, interpreting the facts and events around, improvements, efficiency, etc)

I think #2 has more effect over success or failure. But luck has equal effect over #1 and #2.

 

I think #1 is more important because most ppl don't put in the work on a daily basis to see results

 

I kind of second to what your expression. Activity is confused over accomplishment many a times. Why can't marketer's focus on giving some high quality content, which is invigorating its visitors and I am sure this action will follow a rewarding reaction.

 

Because "only" high quality content today is not enough. This is business. You need to know all aspects of business.
There are many many great quality ideas and products out there that will make small profits and eventually went out of business.
People think it's all fun and easy. Its not. Its hard.

 

I can't say you are wrong. In some conditions, (usually startup stage) hard working can lead to a great success and then it can improve #2.

I personally believe "luck" doesn't deserve being ignored. External conditions around us and anything that we can't control, are much powerful than the things that we can control (eg., efforts, hard working,)
For instance, if you rely on organic traffic and if you don't have any control over search engines, you must be lucky to be successful. This was an example for business conditions.

General physical environment is also very important. For example, we don't choose which country we will be born in, we don't choose our parents, etc. It's obvious that you have to be luckier in the life if you are from a third world country or if you grew up in a poor family or if you are currently in a bad financial position for some external conditions (eg, ongoing financial crisis). Those "unlucky" people usually can not follow up any money making opportunity till the end. The reason is not what or how to do. The reason is who they are (lucky or not) and they can do nothing about it.

 

As my gambling buddy always says, "I will take luck over skill all day long."

The thing about luck, however, is that I have never found a way to affect my luck (I really thought that the witchdoctor was a sure bet, though.) So, my philosophy is that you have to plan your business in anticipation of mostly bad luck while hoping for good luck to occur. In fact, an entrepreneur friend of mine uses this quote all of the time, "A successful entrepreneur is someone who was stubborn enough to stick around long enough, to get lucky."

That said, I would not start a business without a plan, including measurable (i.e., quantitative) milestones and goals leading to a reasonable ROI within a practical timeframe. That does not mean that I always hit those numbers or that I do not revise them as I learn more during the process of actually running the business, but if you do not have a personal scorecard to measure against, you are less likely to be focused on doing the right thing to hit your numbers.

Coldly assessing your results against plan on a regular basis will quickly let you know whether you are doing "the right activities" or not. If you are not hitting your numbers, you know that you need to adjust your activities to bring results up to where they need to be. It is an iterative process, of course, in that you try something different, measure results, continue to adjust, etc.

 

A lot of people buy make money oline information and courses offering internet riches but never take action on them or see them through then complain it didn't work. They don't even reach the busy part.

The ones that get to the being busy part but see no results generally are doing the wrong thing, trying to take shortcuts and easy routes that don't work or just don't get 'it'. It's not enough to pick a domain, create a WP site, add some wishy washy content, chuck in some affiliate links and make half hearted attempts at driving traffic - it's called internet MARKETING!

Traffic is not hard to get if you pick the right niches that have easily to reach target audiences.

If you pick obscure niches that your target audience can only be reached via Google and you suck at SEO then you're going to fail.

Even if you are good at SEO you might fail anyway because of a G algorithm update.

Pick niches where you can reach your target audience easily such as blogs, forums, social media sites you can advertise and get involved and drive direct and targeted traffic to your site relatively easy assuming you have something to offer that your target audience want (most people don't - they know less than their audience and can't offer them any value).

Getting visitors starts with offering great content then getting your target audiences eyes on that great content.

One of the most important things you can do is network, network, network. Doesn't pay off straight away always but over time it usually works in your favor.

 

to answer the initial question, I think the answer is yes. This is why it's so crucial to have a very clear idea what activities add value to the business, and what other activities are nice to do but relatively low value. In general the fluff types of activities can take up way too much time, especially if they're more interesting.

 

You are right external factors cannot be ignored and those factors can be a huge factor as to if you will be successful or not.

 

There was another thread about failure that I put my 2 cents in, but you seem to be wondering specifically about people who work for an extended period and don't see profit. There's been a ton of good responses already (I also think a lot of people have a work-hard-not-smart mentality that affects what they consider accomplishment), so rather than expound on them, I'll just add what I think makes a difference.

Firstly, there are a lot of people out there who have shiny object syndrome really bad. I know, as I had it for a long time before I shook myself awake and made myself face the reality of my chosen 'career'. It can be really hard to break the addiction of buying crap products that promise a free meal.

So many scammers out there take advantage of the fact that most people equate working online with easy money. I would wager that an online business really is easier to manage than a physical one once you get some recognition, but people want to strike oil with the ease of Mr. Clampett. It can take a really long time for reality to set in.

This isn't the most stable of jobs, it actually takes dedication, it'll cost you some money as well, stories of legitimate overnight success are far and few between, and there's a steep learning curve, all of which people just don't like to hear.

That's not to say that Internet marketing is back-breaking work (I, and many other IMers are pretty lazy), but you can't just rush in and start making bank. You have to take the time to learn, and you have to keep learning, as this job is always evolving.

In the end, it's not as easy as you first believe, and the very fact that this myth of easy money keeps getting promoted means that people will fail longer before they realize that the Internet isn't the California gold rush.

 

I presume you talk about online products?
I would argue that even bigger problem is with offline products. Buying "shit" you don't need. Putting yourself into depth you don't need.
People don't realize you need to live very frugal and be smart about spending your money. This comes down to financial habit or education.
For example:
If you have fairly successful website and you are complete moron, spending ever money you get... you will never get rich or generating reasonable passive income because you are burning cash the same moment it hits you wallet.

 

Yeah, I was talking about online products. Instead of creating a plan and sticking with it, people buy one "miracle" product after the other and hope for a miracle.

However, you make an excellent point about spending money on physical products! I remember watching a show once where a financial adviser was talking to a couple about how to save money. The couple was in debt and couldn't see a way out of it.

After looking at their spending habits, she recommended that they don't go out and buy coffee every morning. If it was so important to them, they could buy some and make it at home so it would last longer and stretch their money a bit. The shocked look on their faces were priceless, but very sad to me. People want their lives to get better, but they don't want to even tinker with their current lifestyle in order to effect said change.

 

Great point! Too often people confuse activity with productivity. To continue doing the same thing without positive results and expecting a different outcome is futility at its best.

 

People confuse culpability with compatibility. By this, I mean people would rather jump into something they're simply not cut out for just to make that almighty dollar; when they fail, they blame the system instead of being morally culpable for their poor choices in revenue generation.

You will NOT make it online, or offline, unless you respect the niche you are attempting to dominate. Marketing takes an unbridled passion for delivering brands creatively to the masses; tweeting affiliate links all day, or bulk spamming random email addresses isn't passion - it's digital lunacy.

Finally, success is gauged by one's personal 'bar'. To an alcoholic, success is making it to the liquor store and buying two bottles of tequila instead of one; in marketing, success is best described as one's personal satisfaction with goals set and/or financial gain achieved - if that means $100 makes you happy, success is met when you've collected such.

For most others, success is the thrill of trying and the journey involved with seeking one's personal 'mecca' of financial, personal or physical achievements.

 

And it's not just coffee. When I made decision that I will make it I dropped my spending habit like that. Not that it was huge but it still was. Everything goes into success now, profits - reinvest more - profits - reinvest more - profits...