Times they are a changing

There’s Ed Dale (below) and then Ryan Deiss Doom and Gloom Video called – Is this the end of the Internet! (selling his answer to doom and gloom program)

and Frank Kern going to the offline market (but marketing his offline program – online- watch here)

However its true – Times they are (as usual a changing)

Ed Dale – Oct 18th: -

I’ve been thinking deeply about the direction of online business and the most crucial element of all, how we get traffic.

When it comes down to it, there are only 3 ways you can get people to see your stuff.

1. You can drive traffic to your site from the organic listings in search engines such as Google.
2. You can buy traffic. Google pay per click and Facebook demographic advertising, along with banner advertising, list buying and more exotic techniques such as re-targeting all fall into this category.
3. You become a market leader. You become one of the top 20 influences in your market. Easy!…

It seems to me, there are 3 major factors combining to create one of the largest inflection points we’ve seen in years in our business.

(Look at me – I used the phrase ‘inflection point’)

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

The cost of effective traffic has been going north at a rapid rate. Notice I said “effective” traffic. As more and more of the traditional advertising spend for large corporation’s gets poured in to online advertising it makes it harder and more expensive for us entrepreneurs to compete.

This is particularly true, when you’re starting out. The average cost of a phrase test with pay per click advertising is between $200 and $400. I remember, with some fondness, when a phrase test would cost $20, way back in the good old days of 2004.

The other economic condition we cannot ignore, is the current global environment. In many parts of the world people are struggling right now and their disposable income is not what was.

This is both a threat and an opportunity.

I remember Gary Halbert telling me about the “little blue books”. While I was researching my current theories I decided to hunt down what the “little blue books” were all about.

For 10 cents, you would get a pamphlet stylebook covering everything from stories by famous authors such as H.G.Wells, guides on how to win competitions and for the time, quite thought-provoking topics such as atheism and homosexuality.

During the depression, these little blue books were the equivalent of today’s Internet. A little respite, in the overall economic devastation of the late 20s and early 30s.

At 10 cents apiece, E.Haldeman-Julius sold $15 million worth of these books (that’s $193 million in today’s money)

Right now, we’re seeing extraordinary sales for apps, I think this is the equivalent of the “little blue book”. For $.99 we get a bit of respite and a little bit of enjoyment.

It’s no coincidence coffee sales also, are extremely strong.

It’s these little pleasures which delight and brighten our Day that seem to be driving markets.

You might have noticed we have been experimenting with different price points as well. More on that later.

THE SOCIAL PROBLEM

If you add up all the information collected from the beginning of time to 2003, Eric Schmidt (Googles Chairman) has been quoted as saying the search giant collects that amount of information every 2 days!

When I grew up, I lived in a tiny country town that had two TV stations, one radio station and one newspaper. If it wasn’t for the lifeline of Judge Dredd comics and PC Magazine I’m not sure where I would’ve ended up!

Today, we are bombarded with an almost dizzying array of messages. I believe the success of Facebook is in large part due to its ability to filter out information for the average person so they only receive interesting stuff from people they know.

E-mail delivery and open rates have been declining and I don’t see the trend changing.

As marketers, we have been able to take each of these technologies and exploited “arbitrage” type situations – where for a period of time we could exploit a new technique or technology.

If users are fleeing the traditional Internet of e-mail and web browsing and finding safe haven inside of Facebook and their smartphone (I love you Siri!) where they have much more control of the information they receive I for one believe we need to change and take it into account.

DUNBAR’s NUMBER

It’s worth taking a look at Wikipedia to read about Dunbar’s number. His contention, is any one human being has the capacity to maintain approximately 150 relationships and in early society villages tended to break up once they reached around the 150 figure.

What’s remarkable, is we are seeing the same phenomena online with Joe and Jane Smith (average people, not crazy people like you and I) not being able to maintain more than about 150 friends.

In this new world, the power of recommendation is becoming dominant. Joe and Jane Smith are inundated. They have no choice but to rely heavily on the recommendations of friends and family (not to mention the recommendations of friendly Australians who they follow online :–))

The competition for attention is becoming crazy, what hope has someone new to a market to try and grab some of that attention?

The great news is, there is a repeatable, step-by-step process that will allow anybody to become a respected influencer and in any market inside 12 months.

TECHNOLOGY

I really feel for Google (stop it, I really do!), The cornerstone of the entire search algorithm is breaking down and they know it.

Think about it, the only people creating backlinks today are you, me and the digerati. It’s the tiniest percentage of people on the Internet. Hardly the perfect indicator of what is relevant anymore. For 13 years, backlinks have been everything, today, they still are.

But the days of backlink dominance are coming to a swift end.

I think this is a good thing.

As Leslie Rhode pointed out in a recent conference, a class of 14-year-old girls in high school will create more links in a week than were created on the Internet in 1994.

Joe and Jane Smith do not blog.

What they do do is update their Facebook status, tweet and slap the +1 and like buttons with gay abandon.

Google can’t ignore these new social indicators. They’ve said so themselves.

What gets Joe and Jane Smith to punch the like button?

Content that matters, content that’s funny, content that has a point of view and most importantly, content they want to receive!

To ignore this new reality, to both Google and ourselves, would be suicide.

THERE IS A BRIGHT SIDE

Never before, has there been so many ways to build an audience and have an influence.

Before I go on, let me point out there are 2 kinds of influence, both equally effective.

You can be a “front of the camera” influence, someone who is comfortable with putting their own point of view and leading from the front.

You can also be a “behind-the-scenes” influencer, someone who uses the influence in a non-public way.

You also have the power to choose your communication tool. There are so many ways to build an audience now with little expense and perhaps even more importantly little skill. Being shy is no longer an excuse.

Out there just waiting for you is a message and a medium. The trick, is to figure out both. The fortunate thing is there is a step-by-step process for this to.

I’m actually dictating this blog post, on my new iPhone 4S.

I shot some video yesterday on my iPhone. The quality of the video would have required a camera costing $6,000 only six years ago!

In the old days (2004!), The big bottleneck and the hardest thing to do was produce content. It was expensive, time-consuming and required real expertise. Traffic, was easy as paying $.05 a click and being able to fill out an online form.

Today, producing high-quality content has never been easier or cheaper. Sadly, traffic has become the expensive bottleneck.

For the past 3 years, I have been shaping the idea of “Market Leadership”.

I think it’s an idea come of age.

In an online landscape where traffic is getting harder and for many existing techniques – the writing is on the wall. We need a 3rd way.

I’m guessing you want to be really proud of what you’re producing online, you want to stand behind it 100%, unfortunately some of the techniques that I’ve had to use in the past have not stood up that test.

Don’t get me wrong, the fundamentals have not changed! If you have a list of 100,000 people in your market that love what you do, you’re going to have to be a monumental screwup not to make a decent living!

If you’re one of the top 20 most influential people in your marketplace, again, you’re going have to be pretty tragic to not make a decent living.

So! All we need to do, is become one of the top 20 most influential people in a marketplace!

From Ed Dale’s Blog

1) Reciprocity – we feel obligated to return favors. Thus The Frank Kern idea of ‘stacking the cool”, moving the free line. Give away ‘cool’ value things for free, and the givee will fell (mostly) obligated

2)Liking – we have a tendency to say yes to people we like. Again, the direct marketers portray ‘the likable character’. The story of rags to riches, the humble hero etc. Make your character likable when selling. Or perhaps ACTUALLY make yourself and your life, open and likable and things move in your favor.

3)Scarcity – we place more value on things that are in short supply. And expensive. An e-book that is $19.99 and available to all,is one thing. A Value Report, only 25 available in the world,can be priced at $3000, and jumped at, especially if you have created 1 and 2 above. That is proved you produce value. Now the $19.99 ebook could have the same information, but it will not have the same ‘value’.

4)Social Proof – we always look to see what others are doing, when we are not sure of a decision. A busy restaurant does better than an empty one (Its not about the food). People by more in a busy store than an empty store. Its impossible to stop a run on a bank.

5) Authority – we tend to put more weight on the sayings of those in ‘power’. Power in this case can be ‘in the spotlight’. Frank Kern is notorious for taking up all available oxygen when doing a launch f a product, so his is the most dominat voice in that market at that time.A Movie Star or (just for talkings sake ) a Golf Star have more weight and impact on our water cooler discussions than say – Mabel. (though they may be all doing the same thing).

6) Commitment and Consistency – we like things that are the same, or we perceive to be the same. We like people who follow through. We like people who keep to the same ‘story’.

Of course all six things can be manipulated to produce persuasion. But only for so long. The true ‘supersperson”, ‘super persuader’ actually IS all these things. And uses them only to produce beneficial, that is win-win situations for all involved.

How do you…communicate… in a noisy world?

How do you communicate effectively, with so much distraction?

How do you -are you with me?…hey! – pay attention!…

thank you.

Let us begin.

The Internet is all about communication, the internet is communication. How do you get your voice heard in this web of non-stop 24/7 information howl? How do you get the message out? How do you get Your Information heard?

Here’s the secret (in the internet world of pitches – there’s always a secret) – communication is not about Information- its about Trust.

Let me repeat that for those among you who weren’t paying attention.

Communication isn’t about information its about trust.

If you are a middle class North American Child (without major issues) you listen to adults because you Trust them. And therefore trust the information they convey. (as you get older this of course changes)

If the person communicating to you is someone you love, or respect, or are in some way committed to – you will listen and will trust them and their information. You will hear their information  and will take it in even if its a small voice whispered in a storm.

The issue is not the volume , its the level of the trust.

The issue is never the message, its the value of the conveyer of the message.

The higher the trust, the more you accept the message. (thus the horror of  men of the church using their ‘trusted” positions of communication to fondle your children, or a parent abusing a child)

Advertisers and  Marketers will try to fake trust (I am a Doctor on TV trust me… all dentists agree that…) , but it carries no real weight. It is just more noise in a noisy world.

But if your best friend says ” hey I like this or that product” – you Hear that information, quite clearly.

Word of Mouth is the the best and most trusted form of communication/advertising/marketing -not because it one to one but because its from trusted/believable sources.

So to answer the question – how do you communicate is a  multi-distraction, multi-media,multi-ADD world?

You can:-

1) manufacture or fake a trust – hey I’m a (fill in the blank) just like you , or I was a one legged hobo living out of my car – now look what I have created (who doesn’t trust people with great stories?) – or I was a doctor on TV so..

or

2) You can be Trust Worthy in all your dealings.

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