For many the Internet marketing industry has been a boon unlike anything we have seen in the past and that includes the oil industry, the gold rush and times when real estate prices rocketed. People with minimal skills and mediocre knowledge have made wheelbarrows of money in the industry and will continue to do so for ages to come.
On the flipside there have been those who have not only lost money, but also lost homes and families. There are also those who have tried and failed miserably, over and over again, to make even a minimal amount of money. In fact, the numbers who have tried and failed are significantly higher than those who have achieved success.
Because the Internet appears to be a place where one can easily make money, and it can be, it draws
more people to try Internet marketing than a piece of watermelon would draw from flies on a hot summer day. It just looks like you can wake up, turn on your computer, open a browser and just see money flow in like a heavy rain in an Amazon jungle.
But that isn’t the case at all; the industry is not like any other industry as it is mostly virtual. It is though like any other industry in that is a business that needs to have all the elements of a business save the brick-and-mortar aspect. Income and expenses, business models, marketing methods, branding and all the other elements of a typical business are required to have long-term success in Internet marketing most of the time.
There are opportunities in the industry where branding and other long-term aspects of any business are not required. There are what the industry calls “churn and burn” methods to generate revenue. Those are fine in many instances and one can make several hundred thousand dollars with one of those types of methods. But they are typically not sustainable and they typically don’t make several hundred thousand dollars.
Churn and burn is fine for some but one will always be prospecting for a new method as the C&B process is guaranteed and at some point. And there is nothing wrong with that you choose to go that way but you’ll always be chasing and you’ll make the periodic score but, again, more often than not it will be minimal dollars.
There are Internet marketing gurus out there who guarantee to take you to the promised land for anywhere from $7.00 - $5000.00. Surely for a minimal amount of money you cannot expect to get an education that will make you a millionaire. But people fall that snake oil day in and day out just as they fall for outlandish offers in the “real world”.
These gurus are backed by any number of positive reviews that make them appear to be the way to go in terms of learning how to make money online. They often market themselves by videos of them driving expensive automobiles and living in spectacular homes. And they usually do own those cars and live in those homes but the doing it on Joe Blow and Mary Bikini’s time.
The money they make is not so much from the methods they teach a rather from the fees they charge to the common man. You see they’re not gold prospectors, but rather their selling shovels to those that want to prospect. In the shovels they sell don’t always produce for the gold prospector but rather requires you to come back and buy the latest and greatest method that they have for sale.
That’s not to say that some of those gurus have made decent money with some of the methods, because some have. But that is not necessarily the rule.
Often times the methods have a shelf life and you may or may not catch the wave where the method being taught is going to make you money. But you not told that when you buy in to one of these guru’s opportunities. When you are told is the sky will always be blue, the wind will always be at your back, and that the air temperature will always be 72°F.
Part deceit fueled by greed the guru aspect of the Internet marketing industry is something not talked about in most circles. Typically at an Internet marketing convention, the gurus are held in high regard and lauded and applauded for their success. The crowds ohh and ahh when they speak and hang on every word. Unfortunately, 90% of those that follow in the steps of the gurus and up like broke jokes.
So next time you read about somebody making millions using their computer and marketing, remember that for every one that makes it there are a hundred that do not as there is not always gold at the end of the rainbow.