The brothers Grimm could probably have forecast what the internet has turned in to without a great deal of effort. Maybe they would have used trolls, enchanted fairy folk and animated trees but I'm sure that they would have soon seen how the exploitation of poor innocent children would have become a major growth industry as pig ignorance was promoted by the pig ignorant. Who are the innocent children? For the most part - WE ARE!!
Who are the pig ignorant? Far too many internet marketers!!
I collect free stuff. I collect it because I cannot afford to buy. To collect my free stuff I have to sign up to mailing lists and accept the tidal wave of unadulterated c.r.a.p that floods my in box.
Nine or ten years ago there was not very much available for free to internet marketers. Many products were quite expensive and had to be properly promoted and sold - often offline as well as on. Most of the people selling by internet marketing were selling a wide variety of products and did not expect to get 'instant' anything, nor did they tell blatant lies.
Today, the truth in internet marketing is like a floater in your eye - it's there, somewhere, but it is always just out of reach.
Look at the emails you receive (even from 'reputable' marketers) and REALLY think about what is being done to you if you are an aspiring marketer.
The very first thing you will notice, if you are on a few lists, is that nobody writes interesting emails any more. Most list owners don't even bother writing emails at all but simply copy and paste what everybody else promoting a particular product is using. They are so lazy, they can't even be bothered to change the subject line!
And what are these lazy marketers selling?
Something that fits into a 'niche'!
I'm sorry, but a niche is a blind hole in a wall in which an artifact of some description can be displayed. Usually one niche will contain one artifact and that is the way 'niches' work in internet marketing. A particular aspect of the selling cycle is treated as a stand alone subject or a specific product within a market will be treated as a 'teaser' to trap unwary buyers into an endless stream of peripheral or related products that should have been a part of the original deal.
The internet is sinking under a trash load of product construction kits. Each of these construction kits starts off on a wobbly base - the initial 'free' product. This 'free' product is paid for by the recipient receiving more and more offers that promise to make the 'free' product (which was supposed to have been the best thing since sliced bread) even better.
Lately the trend has been accelerated as people with lists start to make what look like free offers but which are only the promotion of someone else's list building efforts by sending anybody who 'clicks the link' to the landing page of someone completely different.
I don't mind being on mailing lists. Up to as recently as two years ago, I had great value from the lists that I was on. Expert marketers would communicate and introduce ideas for discussion and EVEN answer email enquiries.
Nowadays I am beginning to resent list builders. I will still accept a freebie if it interests me and I will happily join a list BUT I know that the list owner is not going to attempt to build any sort of relationship with me. I know that the only emails he/she will send will be copy and paste emails promoting something that I cannot live without.
I know that I am going to be told, ad nauseem, that every aspect of internet marketing can be automated so that I will earn while I am sleeping. The problem is, if there are 50 aspects to selling a product on line, I will need to be on 50 lists to ensure that I receive any information at all about each aspect. Just how many 'automated traffic systems' are there, for example? Traffic seems to be the topic of the moment and even though obtaining traffic is labour intensive, there will be marketers trying to sell a 'robot' or 'one click' wonder system that will flood any site. They will all have boring, 20 foot long sales pages that will be identical and they will all have bonuses and one time offers and any number of rip-off offers to separate the gullible from their money. It is so bad nowadays that you don't even know what the price of a product is until you try to leave the stultifyingly boring sales waffle! I wonder how many people reading this have paid the full price for something only to discover that they could have got a discount simply by trying to close the page?
Of all the lists that I am on, there is only ONE that provides me with valuable information when the list owner sees how it will fit in with what he has already provided, the rest send me a new and impersonal 'offer' almost every day. All they want to do is 'exploit' those stupid enough not to see the philosophy behind their list building efforts.
The age of the automatic, click of the mouse carpet bagger has arrived.
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Contributor's Note
I have many gigabytes of free stuff - I have also given some of my offline training manuals away - if you think I might have it, feel free to ask for a free product.
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