Offline Gold ... Saturated?

Are you talking about selling the dream to the MMO crowd, or helping businesses create an online presence?

The latter is certainly nowhere near tapped out.

KJ

I don't think it will ever be saturated...

There is so much more to "offline consulting" than web design or SEO. Just think about how many small businesses there are in the world and how many new businesses are starting every year.

All of them have something in common... they need customers to stay in business.

I guess it's really all in positioning... if I position myself as the "SEO guy" or "internet marketing guy", there is a certainly a lot of competition there, but I think true consulting is so much more than that.

SEO, along with almost every other service that falls within the "offline consulting" umbrella is just a piece of the puzzle. As long as you can show a business owner how to increase their profits and you bring something of value to the table, "offline consulting" will be alive an well.

This first is illegal and will get you slammed by Jagex (who had a much higher incidence of gold piracy before they finally got a lid on it) and WoW. I do not recommend this.

The latter I think is going to hit the rocks very soon, now the economy is starting to shift out of its slumber of recession you will start finding less and less companies willing to take your gold and you could end up with some pretty useless sites.

Just my opinion

Is the market for a greeting card mlm "saturated"?

If you charge $500 a month to take someones business online (which is very low), you only need 20 clients to earn a very good living. It is definitely not saturated

So who is in the wrong here?

The one who makes an understandable mistake due to the forum not actually defining it as it does with WSO or SEO or the people who try to act intelligent (and fail) by taking the piss out of said person who makes a genuine mistake?

That reminds me of my Christmas vacation. I spent a few days is a resort town and had conversations in the bars with a number of people which is normal. Once we finally get around to talking about what I do I get business cards and email addresses handed to me from all sorts of business owners and friends and family of business owners.

There are millions of offline businesses who need help.

Two and a half weeks later, with no selling, I have a $3,800 a month contract with a video conferencing company to get them rankings for a handful of keywords, a guided hiking partnership paying a few hundred a month for some basic off page SEO and for me to host their autoresponder and more leads to follow up on.

The crazy thing is neither of those companies operate in my home country. I don't provide service to many offline businesses but if I ever wanted to tap into a big market it sure doesn't seem saturated to me.

There are companies that'll pay you money to put up some YouTube videos, get Google rankings, run an autoresponder, write an ezine or blog for them, create FREE and paid info products to generate leads, build websites...even one company keeps paying me to get them a local business listing which is already a free service!

If you want to really get a local business owner excited try finding a keyword that is not too hard to dominate where they are paying for adwords or even better one of their competitors is and get them one the front page.......before contacting them.

Then let them know you can maintain it or add additional keywords and it is not a tough sell - you've already delivered once.

Could easily say that about niche marketing, article marketing, clickbank or any other type of marketing. Every time we get one of those "I made $50,000 last month...follow me" threads, everyone jumps onboard, a slew of new WSO come out all claiming a better way.

Sure....the offline marketing threads seem to have increased lately.....and more people definately are turning to it...why? Because it Works....

JMO,
Ken

Well I live in the 7th largest city in the USA and the business owners I speak with have never been approached (I only market my own business) so I can't believe anything offline is saturated although I guess a lot depends on where you live.

The market is saturated with a bunch of amateur hacks trying to BS their way through the fog, and hapless business owners that continue getting taken to the cleaners by these cheese crisps that couldn't market hookers and coke at a lottery winner's convention.

Your 100% correct Tim. Of the ones who jump on the WSO bandwagon I bet it would be hard to prove for most....

I was referring to the ones who actually apply what is being shared here, actually have working clients & a bonified business.

It really is one of the fastest & easiest ways to make a very good living...more & more are turning to offline marketing & for the first time they are making some really money. By landing 2 or 3 clients with monthly residual income...most are making more than they ever have hawking their affiliate products, or selling their $7 dollar ebooks...

If you want the "offline gold" business model to work, then you have to bring your own talents and strengths into the equation. Helping traditional offline businesses establish an online presence with proper marketing techniques is not even close to being saturated, if you know what you are doing.

You gotta be kiding.

Saturated absolutely not.

I started doing offline marketing for businesses a long time ago and just started a whole new business this year.

Did three for free and really pumped them along and now all our work comes in via referals.

We got 3 new jobs today from one of those three customers.

So in just a month we have almost got more work than we can handle and just not here in my home land of Australia.

I didn't use my list as my partner getting the jobs wants to do it all him=self. I just do the work for him.

Get off your but and get out there and you can easily make 100K plus this year. If you can't get the work get together with a sales person who can.

Quentin

NO this area for making money will never get saturated, if anything, its getting easier to find clients wanting help!

Even though a lot of imers will buy the many reports on offline gold, like other areas of IM, not many will tale action. However the ones that do will reap the benefits more and more!

Also bein imers we can diversify our services at any time as we have our ears to the online world ground if that makes sense. we know whats hot and what works.

You show biz owners ur skills, regardless of the saturation, your skills and knowledge win everytime!

I hope that makes sense, im typing this on my phone in starbucks waiting to meet a potential new client! The gold in offline is brighter than ever, right now! ; )

GoGetta

I'm finding that a lot of businesses that have tried online SEO work have dealt with faceless companies across the world, and had terrible experiences. At least in my experience, being able to go in and talk to companies face to face helps immensely with the trust factor, and getting hired.

Of course once you have a reputation it will be easier to nab clients across the world, but I think the chance for local promotion is huge.

Look at how popular web 2.0 is right now in our society. Businesses know it, but don't have a solution.

Right now that need far outweighs the people out there supplying

Matt

I get bombarded with awful requests (not on WF I might add) for me to outsource the offline work we do to them. These companies are often a joke, with badly written emails and unrealistic promises.

I think a lot of prospects are approached directly by them as well and most recognise the fly by night nature of some offshore offliner services and avoid them. A few get burnt though.

We aren't cheap, but we provide a high end service - I can't say I am worried about competition as the quality is generally so low.