Is Internet Marketing Really Just Common Sense?

[acrasial]

Exactly as the title says: Is internet marketing really just common sense?

What do you think can sum internet marketing up in one sentence? What really makes internet marketing what it is? Tell me your thoughts, I think it's just common sense.

Also Mr Jeremy Kelsall Has a thread going about a topic which I believe is similar, where he asks warriors if they ever just think about keeping things real, and I think he hit a gold nugget there: Common sense.

Humans don't want to be treated like mass buyers whose only purpose is to spend spend spend, but they want to be treated as a being with intelligence, feelings, thoughts etc... and the same thing applies to marketing.

[BIG Mike]

For the most part, I think it is - the basics of it anyways. Unfortunately, I suspect many folks have elevated it to damn near a religion in some cases.

Marketing is only one aspect of any business - neither the most, nor least important element of it. The science behind marketing is something that certain individuals seem to intuit on their own, while others struggle to ever learn even a small piece of it.

Getting back to the OP, I do think that allowing common sense to guide you when all else fails is the way to go.

[acrasial]

Originally Posted by BIG Mike

Getting back to the OP, I do think that allowing common sense to guide you when all else fails is the way to go.

I *think that anyone struggling simply lacks common sense, and I will be brutally honest here:

Most of the time I lack common sense as well. But once in a while, I get a brain wave, and an "AHA" moment, but really, if we all had "AHA" moments all the time, we wouldn't be struggling, because those "AHA" moments are simply just common sense.

[BIG Mike]

Originally Posted by acrasial

I *think that anyone struggling simply lacks common sense, and I will be brutally honest here:

Most of the time I lack common sense as well. But once in a while, I get a brain wave, and an "AHA" moment, but really, if we all had "AHA" moments all the time, we wouldn't be struggling, because those "AHA" moments are simply just common sense.

That's exactly right - and I find myself in those "AHA" moments probably just as much as you or anyone else does. Usually when I find myself trying to hard to focus on marketing itself - and then common sense goes out the window.

[THY]

I agree. Some even argue saying that internet marketing is an art but there's nothing really complicated about it. For me, some of the basic common rules like building a network, establish relationship and promotion remains the same in every business model.

[acrasial]

Originally Posted by THY

I agree. Some even argue saying that internet marketing is an art but there's nothing really complicated about it. For me, some of the basic common rules like building a network, establish relationship and promotion remains the same in every business model.

I struggle in it sometimes, and get confused reading all of these things on how to do something. Imagine that I struggled trying to figure out how to backlink, and most people would consider that one of the most simple things to learn. I was complicating it, and still do, and for what benefit? I still have not backlinked, so that's what I get for complicating things!

My mentor tells me this: "You think too much", and that is highly true, and as was mentioned, when one thinks too hard on something, common sense just flies out the window.

[AllenD]

I disagree.

There are a lot of ways the human brain filters what is right in front of the eyes. For example, people get used to banner ads and start to ignore them. Someone actively searching for a particular product might miss a banner ad for that product if they are reading the text right next to it.

It is a very intricate process to figure out what will get past the brain's filters. What is an effective marketing technique today may not work well in the future, just as some techniques that were working in 2000 don't perform well today.

You also have to deal with changing technologies to keep up with the times. Now Google likes video to get to the top of the search results, but it hasn't always been that way.

I guess you could say it is common sense to test different ways and see what works, but what works is by no means intuitive to most people.

If it is intuitive to some people then they are uncommon, otherwise there wouldn't be so many wannabe internet marketers and so relatively few successful marketers.

Marketing is critical to any business. If you can't attract customers to buy your product or service you can't make money. Therefore marketing is very competitive with everyone trying to find out what better attracts customers.

Because some rare individuals do have an intuitive feel for what works and others work real hard to figure out what works, people who just rely on their common sense usually fail to get noticed.

[acrasial]

Originally Posted by AllenD

I disagree.

There are a lot of ways the human brain filters what is right in front of the eyes. For example, people get used to banner ads and start to ignore them. Someone actively searching for a particular product might miss a banner ad for that product if they are reading the text right next to it.

.

We may consciously filter it out, but everything is still registered in our subconscious, therefore I disagree as well!

[acrasial]

Originally Posted by AllenD

It is a very intricate process to figure out what will get past the brain's filters. What is an effective marketing technique today may not work well in the future, just as some techniques that were working in 2000 don't perform well today.

I would agree here on the basis that we get used to things, and we grow bored of things over time, which is why we have advances in many things such as entertainment, computers, etc... even fashion.

In that case, there are constantly new things being invented which can draw people's attention, but always lead back to a few basic points: simplicity, common sense, and some other things to sugar coat the first two things, such as a fancy design.

Originally Posted by AllenD

You also have to deal with changing technologies to keep up with the times. Now Google likes video to get to the top of the search results, but it hasn't always been that way.

It's that way now because people have short attention spans and get bored of things easily. Commercials have become shorter and shorter and shorter, and so have the time lapses between frame and angle changes in any video media, such as movies and television series.

But hey, was it all that difficult for all of the producers to figure out that people's attention spans are growing shorter and shorter? Not really. LOL, because as it seems "everyone" is doing the above kind of film takes.

Originally Posted by AllenD

I guess you could say it is common sense to test different ways and see what works, but what works is by no means intuitive to most people.

If it is intuitive to some people then they are uncommon, otherwise there wouldn't be so many wannabe internet marketers and so relatively few successful marketers.

Yes, it's not easy for many in fact, but I attribute that to people just over thinking things, or not simplifying things. Yup, but I still attribute their success to common sense.

Originally Posted by AllenD

Marketing is critical to any business. If you can't attract customers to buy your product or service you can't make money. Therefore marketing is very competitive with everyone trying to find out what better attracts customers.

Everything in life can be competitive, and as mentioned, things are constantly being invented and changed. Most of the things that are popular now were considered crazy a few years ago. My family still thinks it's crazy that I work online, or that I can find people to talk to online, as that wasn't the norm for them when they were growing up.

My point then would be that I don't think it's about finding what better attracts customers always either, as the things that attract me now existed back when and didn't attract my family then either. But it was made simpler, easier to use, and then suddenly it caught on, and these things are:

---the internet
---computers
---cell phones
---Ipods (formerly advanced mp3 players... you know the ones that had all the buttons and features but not it's just an Ipod, cassette tapes etc...)

Convenience, simplicity, common sense.

Originally Posted by AllenD

Because some rare individuals do have an intuitive feel for what works and others work real hard to figure out what works, people who just rely on their common sense usually fail to get noticed.

How about Steve Jobs? What about Eben Pagan? Tony Robbins?

Or how about Ester Hicks? Judge Judy? LOL

Ok, but all of these people have used common sense to sell and achieve widespread success, and are noticed. Not everyone wants to be noticed either, as some successful people like to keep things low profile.

[Ralf Skirr]

Originally Posted by acrasial

Exactly as the title says: Is internet marketing really just common sense?

While a lot of it is common sense, there are also important aspects that seem to defy common sense. For example, from a series of 5 or 6 headline your 'common sense' might tell you which one is the surefire winner.

Then you put it online and it bombs.

It's only through testing that you find out the things that you just can't predict with common sense.

I must admit that for a long time I relied on common sense, and in some things I found it just does not work.

Examples:
- What products to create? What would peope buy like hotcakes?
- What headlines to use?
- How long the sales copy should be?
- How to run a mailing campaign?

I was disappointed that many of my decisions based on common sense did not work out at all and that indeed I had to do it the hard way: research, track and test.

Being self employed sine 1987 I lost TONS AND TONS of money relying on common sense. There's a lot more than 'common sense' needed once you have to pay recurring bills for your life, your office and a group of employees.

It's always better to test and track, to roll out things on a small scale and only go big after successful testing.

It must be said, however, that one does not go without the other. You can do tons of research and still bomb.

To me common sense is the starting point of an enterprise. Then researching, testing and tracking must kick in for execution.

Originally Posted by acrasial

Humans don't want to be treated like mass buyers whose only purpose is to spend spend spend, but they want to be treated as a being with intelligence, feelings, thoughts etc... and the same thing applies to marketing.

Another one where I have to say 'I agree, but...'

They don't want to FEEL like they're being treated like mass buyers, right. If they fell treated like that they will take their money and run. And rightfully so.

But their (or OUR) actual way of making a purchase decision is just like that (the mass reacts to the same triggers) and they do not know it, neither would they like to admit it if they knew.

We all like to think we make our buying decisions as intelligent, smart beings. But the truth is, we're not, at least not as much as we would like to be.

That's a looooong topic of course, and many will defend their position of making rational choices. But research and marketer's experience clearly is evidence of the opposite.

It's just to easy and romantic to think 'I'm smart and I know how to run my business with common sense', but then you find that a lot of what runs your business is experience, taking massive action again and again, and finding a few gems amongst lots of unsuccessful projects.

Reminds me of a quote from Tony Robbins...

Success is the result of good judgment, good judgment is the result of experience, and experience is often the result of bad judgment!

Just my 2 cents.

Ralf

[affiliated survivor]

You can get quite far by using common sense, but common sense does not produce miracles.

Does the economy thrive on common sense? Definetely not. An example: Some actors in Hollywood, dressed in imaginary outfits, play some aliens in front of cardboard backgrounds. These movies, even though a total crap in terms of common sense, become popular and NASA gets a large budget. As a result we now have Tefal pans and communiction satellites. Those people who only act on common sense (a stupid word anyway) are the poor people in the world. People who take the world/natural reality as it is and obey and live according to it´s rules stay poor.

What makes an effective salespage? Besides a good sales text there is the template. In terms od common sense the template is of absolutely no importance. It doesn´t say anything about the product. If it is good or not. Nevertheless the template has a large influence on people. A salespage without graphics is like a person without a face. And as we know it is easier for a good looking person to convince others with his opinion (even with exactly the same words) than it is for an unattractive person.

What is exactly in a face? This cannot be describe accurately with words. Being a top graphics designer cannot be learned in school. You need talent by nature or from where ever these people get their inspiration. Things that cannot be described in words touch the magickal in this world. Some people can look over the edge of the framework/paradigma established by common sense. They may not be aware of this but a template/graphics that can override common sense is something else than common sense.

[milan]

A lot of it is pure common sense! Good marketers never forget that, but some wanna-be ones seem to forget.
For those things which are not common sense: you may also use common sense to figure them out. This is where people who are not being too emotional about their projects do much better.

[Kay King]

Does the economy thrive on common sense?

Don't know - it's never been tried, has it?

Internet marketing = Sell Stuff

But it gets complicated with terms like: journey, vision, dream, lifestyle, path, quest, adventure, freedom.

Or maybe those terms are used so often because people are afraid to "sell stuff"?

[Daniel E Taylor]

Hell no it's not just "Common Sense".

So I guess all the YEARS of Vigorously study marketing, pyschology,
persuasion, copywriting, Video selling, etc... were all for nothing.

Maticulously writing and editing 100's of sales letters.

Spending days creating intricate launch plans that even included
how planning out which emotional trigger every email would hit.

All of this for nothing. Low and behold all I needed was just
"Common Sense".

My sister has alot of that. I should tell her how much time
she wasted getting a degree from USC because to make it in
internet marketing all she needs is "Common Sense".

----------

I'm not trying to be mean spirited. But I really want to help you
and other warriors get back to reality and stop all of this Airy
Fairy stuff.

It does take common sense... The common sense to know that
to be successful in any field requires an abundance of acquired knowledge
bundled with blood and sweat of action taking.

People don't just buy stuff because you say "Hey Buy This"...

They have to be persuaded. And there is so much involved in
building a REAL 6-8 figure business onlne that it's not even funny.

Quit reading all those WSO's.

Daniel

[Nathan Alexander]

Unfortunately common sense isn't always aptly named!

[Tom Harvey]

I suppose that "common sense" is the by product of months of trial and error on internet marketing. Also spending hundreds of hours reading emails and following links and more links that at the end of the session, you are exhausted and mentally fatigued. Then, it dawns on the newbie that all you really have to do is take one concept and implement that concept. Be it PPC, PPV, WSO's or whatever floats your boat.. Just do one positive thing and voila :"common sense"

Tom

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by acrasial

Is internet marketing really just common sense?

I think internet marketing's common sense to those who understand the basics of marketing. To those who don't, I suspect it can be anything but.

I think of internet marketing as being like a hurdle race in which anyone can learn to negotiate the hurdles to success, as long as they know where they are.

The alleged high failure-rate in internet marketing (which I imagine is really no higher than that of any other form of self-employment) arises mostly among those who have (for any combination of a variety of different reasons) failed to identify the hurdles, not so much among those who have failed to clear them: you can't clear them if you don't know where they are.

[Ross Vegas]

Sure, here's the magic common sense formula. stuff + people = money. Now everyone go get rich.

Internet marketing, is still marketing. A field you can get a college degree on.

There are also so many subtleties you learn from experience. Plus a large part of marketing is about testing and coming up with new ideas and techniques.

And the real kicker is that what people think and even tell you what they respond too, usually isn't in fact what motivates their decision making.

[Zack Lim]

I personally think that common sense are information and strategies that are proven to works for the internet business.

It will be practical to learn from other people's mistakes and gain important experiences along the way while operating the business.

Just my 2 cents

Zack

[Tina Golden]

Merriam-Webster's definition of common sense: sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts

I don't believe that internet marketing is all common sense but I do think people with common sense will do better in just about everything than those who don't have any.

Common sense should tell someone that texting while driving is a pretty poor idea but clearly there is a lack of common sense in the US since we've had to make laws about it.

Common sense should tell someone that if you spend more money than you are taking in, then the business won't last very long. However, many marketers don't seem to grasp this very basic business concept.

Tina

[Tinkerbell]

To sum up "internet marketing" in just one sentence:
Marketing (selling people stuff) on the Internet (online).

Better Internet Marketing in just one sentence:
Using the Internet to get in front of a "starving crowd" and sell them stuff they already desperately want to buy.

Is it common sense? Yeah, I think it is - for the most part. I studied writing for years. When all was said and done, I had to make myself try to forget most of what I'd absorbed, or "unlearn" a great deal of stuff.

Best rule of thumb? KISS. Keep it simple, sistah.

The most difficult part is the monotonous chores that must be done. The "little things" most folks would rather skip entirely.

Okay, I'm rambling so I'll stop now.

Tina

[Gene Pimentel]

Successful Internet Marketing = Creativity + Motivation + Persistence + a dash of Common Sense.

[Ernie Mitchell]

Common sense is based on acquired knowledge therefore whether successful internet marketing is a product of common sense depends on the quality of your specialized knowledge. Moral to the story: "School can never be out for the pro."

The current challenge with the internet is that it's cornerstone methods are still in the process of being defined and refined. We are going through the same turmoil today that shaped, defined and contextualized the art of salesmanship at the turn of the twentieth century. As a result of our journey let's hope that our grandchildren don't end up inheriting a phobia for the word "Marketing" the way today's Internet Marketers have a phobia for the word "Sales."

Now let's all go out and sell something :-)

[Hesaidblissfully]

A lot of things seem like common sense once you understand the dynamics behind them and have experience with them.

For example, getting up and walking across the room may seem like common sense to any adult who's fortunate enough to be able to walk. We may not understand the exact mechanics of it, but we have an unconscious understanding of what movements we need to perform to get up and walk across the room.

But for me or you to say to a baby who's never walked before "walking is just common sense" would be silly. They don't understand what they need to do to get up and start walking, let alone have the experience and "muscle memory" that makes it something that they can do without even thinking about it.

Likewise, I'm sure the movements involved in some complex dance routine might seem like common sense to Janet Jackson or Justin Timberlake, but they'd be anything but that to you or me (unless you happen to be a dancer).

Skills like walking, driving, turning on the computer and logging onto the internet all seem like "common sense" to us now, but remember there was a time when we didn't know how to do these things, and I would say it's the same for marketing. Like anything else, it's a skill that has to be understood and practiced in order to do it effectively.

Not only that, but marketing has a lot of components that on the surface seem to run AGAINST common sense. If Joe or Jane Average has a product to sell, their logical approach would be to just try to sell the product directly by setting up an ad or squeeze page for the product. It wouldn't dawn on them that they might have more success by "selling" a free product that gets prospects to opt into an email list and then use email communication to build trust and credibility so that the prospect purchases their paid product. I'm sure this concept seems like common sense to the majority of people reading this now, but I'm also sure that the majority of people reading this didn't come up with the idea on thier own. They learned it from somewhere and then began to apply it themselves. NOW it seems obvious, but it wasn't always so.

So basically what's common sense to you changes along with your knowledge and experience.

[danhughes]

I think successful marketing is as much about common sense as it is about hard work...
In other words, only kinda sorta.

Successful Marketing / Entrepreneurialism / Salesmanship is one of those things that can't really be taught. Sure, you can learn it and have some success but the most successful people have a natural gift. To the most successful marketers it will often be common sense, but their version of common sense is what makes them successful.

My favorite personal example of marketing not making any friken sense at all was a PPC ad I ran.

I was trying to come up with ad variations and was busy cutting and pasting different text to try and improve CTR. Without realizing, one of the ads I ended up making was complete gibberish. It was spelled right and in English, but gibberish none the less.

The only reason I ever noticed I had made the mistake was because it out performed all my other ads by ~25%.

So pretty much, my common sense is now, assume nothing and test everything.

[Ernie Mitchell]

Originally Posted by danhughes

......Successful Marketing / Entrepreneurialism / Salesmanship is one of those things that can't really be taught. Sure, you can learn it and have some success but the most successful people have a natural gift. To the most successful marketers it will often be common sense, but their version of common sense is what makes them successful. .......

As a retired salesman, sales manager and VP or Marketing & Sales I have to respectfully disagree with you Dan.

While I think artists and musicians are born I don't think there is any such thing as a natural born salesman, marketer or entrepreneur anymore than there is such a thing as a a natural born doctor or carpenter. Motivational factors no doubt play a big part in the drive and therefore ultimate success of entrepreneurs, marketers and salespeople but I thnk they are made (usually self made) and not born.

There are rules for making a sale just like there are rules for building a barn or baking a cake. Some of the rules involve personality development but selling, marketing and entrepreneurship IMHO are learned/teachable skills.

In actuality this is good news for there is no "chosen/gifted few" just a stubborn monority that refuses to quit. I'm reminded of a duck or swan on a pond. On the surface they are appear calm and serene but under the surface they are paddling like crazy.