Would you like to know the secret of Internet marketing?

THERE IS NO SECRET TO INTERNET MARKETING!

Here’s another secret: if you hear someone talking about their secrets to internet marketing, do these two things fast: 1. Grab your wallet. 2. Run in the opposite direction as quickly as possible.

I have come to the conclusion that there is one exception to my rule. You can make money through internet marketing if and only if you are marketing to people who want to get rich quick by making money off of internet marketing.

If that’s not who you are or your target audience (victims) is, then forget about internet marketing.

The email blasts, the single page sales letter websites, the super-low cost Facebook ads, for the most part, don’t work for anyone other than con artists.

Internet “marketing” doesn’t work because it’s really hard to interrupt people on the Internet. Within half a second, they can be on another more interesting web page. This is not 1971 when I had to get up off the couch and walk 15 feet to the TV to change the channel to avoid a commercial I don’t like. Interruption marketing doesn’t work on the internet not because people have suddenly grown intolerant of interruptions, people have always hated interruptions. It’s just that the internet makes it a billion times easier for consumers to instantly get away from your interruptions in a way that I can’t do if I am driving down the highway and your billboard is the only thing to look at for miles (if I try to ignore the billboard, my only choice is to close my eyes, crash and die!).

Here is the only other secret you need to know about internet marketing:

Don’t market your stuff through the internet, don’t hype, don’t pitch, and don’t sell. Instead, give away great content, ideas, articles, videos, and audios. Have conversations with real customers, prospects and colleagues. Participate in a community of like-minded people.  If you do these things long enough, you will eventually make money, potentially a huge amount of money, through the internet helping you connect to your “market.”

I’m sure to get a lot of hate mail and burn a few bridges, but I’m going to stick my neck out and just say it, “show me someone who calls himself (and it is usually a ‘him’) a great internet marketer, and I’ll show you a con man who prays on the hopes and dreams of lazy people who want to get rich quick.”

I don’t have to name names; you get emails from them every day.

The three best internet marketers I know are all people who don’t call themselves Internet marketers. They are Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Gary Vaynerchuk—surely you know them too. All three are wildly successful, make tons of money and make themselves known to the “market” via the internet. But they do it by providing lots of content, generating penetrating ideas, creating community, helping people and not by bugging the crap out of people to give them their credit cards on a daily or hourly basis.

So the next time you see some Internet marketer pitching you on the latest can’t miss scheme, ask yourself “do I see Guy, Gary and Seth doing this?”