---

Guest post by: Gihan Perera Become an Author

Tweet

---

---

Seth Godin's 2007 book "Meatball Sundae" is now a few years old (it was published in 2007, which is a lifetime ago in Internet years!), its main message is relevant more than ever today: You can't use modern marketing techniques to sell "old" products and services. Here are some examples ... Here are some of the most common questions people ask me about their Internet marketing:

• How do I reduce the amount of incoming e-mail?
• How often do I need to blog in order to get a high Google ranking?
• How much business can I really get from Facebook?
• How can I use Twitter to get more leads?
• Why isn't anybody active in my forum / membership site / on-line community?
• How can I make my YouTube video go viral?
• Do I need to use Google+ in addition to everything else I'm doing?

These are the wrong questions! When I dig a little deeper, I usually discover the person asking the question is running a traditional kind of business, and is hoping to bolt on new Internet tools to their marketing.

For example, it might be:

• A conference speaker who has put their demo video on YouTube, and now wants it to "go viral".
• A trainer who has created a password-protected area of their site (and is calling it a "membership site"), and uploads occasional material there.
• A coach who doesn't want clients to e-mail her questions between coaching sessions.
• An author who is releasing extracts of his book on his blog.
• A retail store owner who is reluctantly collecting customers' e-mail addresses.

There's nothing inherently wrong with these things, as long as you've got the right mindset about your business. But if you're hoping these new marketing channels will help you promote the same old business you've been running for the last decade, you're wrong.

Hopelessly wrong.

If you're a conference speaker who relies on bureaus and past clients for new work, then of course you don't want to invest the time in relationships on Twitter and Facebook.

If you're an author who's hoping a big-name publisher will pick up your book, then you probably don't care about building a reputation by blogging and podcasting.

If you're a trainer whose password-protected "membership site" is merely a way of adding perceived value so you can charge a higher fee, you don't want pesky members asking you questions!

If you're a coach who bills by the hour, you definitely don't want your clients to interact with you by e-mail, Twitter and Facebook between your coaching sessions.

If you're a retail store owner, you don't want to offer customers discounts, offers and special deals, because that eats into your margins.

If you've got an "old" business, use old marketing channels. I'm not saying you can't run this kind of business (although I do think you should keep a very, very careful eye on what's around the corner, because many of these old business models are falling apart). But if you do choose it, don't expect Internet marketing to help you very much.

By all means, keep building those relationships with bureaus, taking your clients out to dinner, seeking publishers, and all that stuff that used to work. These are all good things to do, and they will probably continue to work for you (at least, for now).

But if you want to change your marketing, change your business as well. The other option is to change your business (before somebody else changes it for you). Look at my list of questions above and flip them from negatives to positives:

• In what circumstances might you want to increase your incoming e-mail?
• What if you were blogging because you had something to say, not just to increase your Google ranking?
• What if you never got business from Facebook, but used it to build relationships that got you business indirectly?
• Is it possible that you could never send a tweet but still make Twitter a vital part of your business?
• What if your on-line community became active because the members themselves took ownership of it?
• What if "going viral" isn't the purpose of putting videos on YouTube?

All of these things are possible, but only if you change your mindset to embrace them, not just tack them on to your business as an afterthought.

Related Articles

  Geek Marketing 101
  Future Marketing kicks out the ancient marketing
  Real Estate Marketing Strategies - Tips for Creating Success
  Is PR Marketing? Is Marketing PR?
  5 Digital Marketing Advantages
  How to fix sputtering marketing
  Target Your Niche With Internet Marketing
  M is for Marketing Strategy
  The fastest way to get feedbacks from customers is now possible with text message marketing
  Marketing - Art or Science?
  Power Marketing Tips 01 Warning marketing can be fun
  Mistakes of a Marketing Budget Strategy
  Why A Strategic Marketing Plan Is Essential For Your Business
  Why email marketing is the right answer for your business
  Book Review: Web Marketing For Dummies
  Commitment
  Are you a Guerrilla
  Fusion Marketing: Two Businesses Are Better Than One
  Marketing Assessment
  Sales VP's and Marketing VP's - Should the Roles be Combined?

Related Forum Posts

Re: Fill in the blank: The best decision I ever made with my bus
My entry
New Small Business Topic
Re: How many mambers of this forum are also member of WF?
Network Marketing Business

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Steps For Starting A Small Business

The Value of Repetition

Tasks You Can Outsource to a Virtual Assistant

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.