Another Company Bites the Dust – But Internet ‘Gurus’ Get Their Money

This is a very unhappy ‘I told you so’ on my part.

But it’s like clockwork… sad, fatalistic, inevitable... a warning from Cassandra that goes unheeded.

A very promising company has just gone under. Sure, there are a lot of reasons, but primary was the decision to spend big bucks on Internet/SEO/Adword gurus. These Net guys got a relatively large sum to build an online presence that would virtually ‘guarantee’ sales and top-of-the-page organic SEO.

Remember, these were the guys who proudly boasted that they had built 159 landing pages to make sure the word got out to every corner of the digital world. (See The Big Lie: Software Is Eating Marketing).

Problem was, these guys weren’t marketers. Problem was the owner believed that metrics could boost sales rather than solid marketing. Problem was the owner paid good money for his web presence but did very little and spent very little to develop a coherent message/story for his product.

But the web guys were so confident their strategy would work – the same strategy they use for every company regardless of product.

As predicted, the 159 landing pages and blogs and tweets and Facebook pages all went for naught. No story, no sales. Period.

So the company goes bust, good friends are out of work… while the Internet guys move gleefully to yet another company, making the same promises and taking the same large chunk out of the budget.

In a letter to the company president sent six months ago, here was my warning…

There is so much chatter about new algorithms, the decline of keywords, the rise of unique content, the decline of multiple sites, etc., I focus on the long-term narrative and customer expectations. If that messaging is right, Internet professionals will know how to break the copy above the fold and those types of things. 

But… If people don’t understand or believe your message, or don’t see the need for your product, all the CTRs and CPCs and closing rates and page hits won’t really translate into the type of sales you’re looking for.

Again, simple advice that went unheeded.

New Wave Marketing 101: Fixing Direct Response

Direct response ads have lost whatever credibility they had mostly because of the products themselves… cheaply made and basically ineffective, then tied to the standard DRTV format that screams rip off. 

Add generally poor service… slow shipping, bad return policy, tricky automatic renewals, etc. and you've destroyed any trust between vendor and consumer. 

Here's how to fix DR:

1. Sell better products 
2. Make sure what you say in the ad copy matches what’s said about the product online (to the best of your ability)… better products should make this easier  
3. Spend some money on social media to defend your products, for goodness sakes 
4. Change the tired DRTV format, for example:
    

• Give the actual price upfront 
• Forget BUT WAIT and triple your order tricks  
• Give a full guarantee, shipping and all  
• Avoid the tired Guthy Renker model (or should I say “trusted Guthy Renker”)... look, they’ve made a lot of money at it, good for them, but GR has burned out the format here in the U.S. which is why their sales are increasingly coming from other countries 
• Avoid automatic renewal – the #1 reason why most consumers will not buy and do not trust you
   

Any takers? Probably not. DR has matured into a derivative ad form for a me-too industry built by so-called 'entrepreneurs' who are mostly cowboys.