Are you a marketing ghost?

10 replies
One of the things which has always intrigued me is why some people are working online and trying to build their business but do not make themselves findable anywhere.

In the past I have come across a fair few seemingly "cool people" so you take the standard actions and you google them, see what products they have, see if they have a blog, videos, facebook, twitter, see what articles they have written, see what other people say about them and see how much free value and information they give out.

But often you can`t find anything anywhere.

I used to mainly do this a fair few years ago when I was starting out and often used to purchase products from them to learn more.

Building an online business is great I love it but one of the biggest problems in our industry is people "not knowing who to trust"

And people not being able to find more about you online does not do anything to help that issue.

Just wondered what everyone else`s thoughts and views were on this subject.

Thanks

Paul

PS: I`m not saying everyone has to do things the same way but by being easily findable online certainly builds more trust with your potential customers :-)
#ghost #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author fin
    I think it's crazy leaving all that money on the table by not doing videos, etc.

    But I imagine they would rather stay hidden and are happy with what money they earn.

    Maybe they already own a tropical island.

    They also maybe have a pen name and need to keep some businesses hidden.
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    • Profile picture of the author Lucian Lada
      Originally Posted by fin View Post

      I think it's crazy leaving all that money on the table by not doing videos, etc.

      But I imagine they would rather stay hidden and are happy with what money they earn.

      Maybe they already own a tropical island.

      They also maybe have a pen name and need to keep some businesses hidden.
      It depends on demographics as well. Some people just don't enjoy videos as much as articles.

      And there's the language barrier. People who have English as their second language usually have a not-so-great accent, and their videos wouldn't denote professionalism.
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    Paul,

    I don't think that it is important for your success as a marketer to be able to have people find you online and see who you are.

    You can pretty much biggy back on someone else's success and still do well. An example of that is when you send people to the vendor's website and they do all the hard work at making people trust them.

    They may add videos of themselves or even just photos while no one knows who you are as the affiliate who got these people to the vendor's website.
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    • Profile picture of the author paul nicholls
      Originally Posted by talfighel View Post

      Paul,

      I don't think that it is important for your success as a marketer to be able to have people find you online and see who you are.

      You can pretty much biggy back on someone else's success and still do well. An example of that is when you send people to the vendor's website and they do all the hard work at making people trust them.

      They may add videos of themselves or even just photos while no one knows who you are as the affiliate who got these people to the vendor's website.

      Yeah I know what you mean and you are right when it comes to affiliate marketing
      and selling other peoples products

      But at some stage people will or should consider selling their own products and when they do is when the "trust" issue comes into play

      Selling affiliate products is all well and good but it`s not a wise move though to just sell affiliate products and have none of your own

      Paul :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author angshuy2k
    Originally Posted by paul nicholls View Post

    One of the things which has always intrigued me is why some people are working online and trying to build their business but do not make themselves findable anywhere.

    In the past I have come across a fair few seemingly "cool people" so you take the standard actions and you google them, see what products they have, see if they have a blog, videos, facebook, twitter, see what articles they have written, see what other people say about them and see how much free value and information they give out.

    But often you can`t find anything anywhere.

    I used to mainly do this a fair few years ago when I was starting out and often used to purchase products from them to learn more.

    Building an online business is great I love it but one of the biggest problems in our industry is people "not knowing who to trust"

    And people not being able to find more about you online does not do anything to help that issue.

    Just wondered what everyone else`s thoughts views were on this subject.

    Thanks

    Paul

    PS: I`m not saying everyone has to do things the same way but by being easily findable online certainly builds more trust with your potential customers :-)
    Dear Paul,

    Honestly and truely speaking, you are right and do agree with you completely. I had one of my business 3 years ago and it is still there but due to lack of marketing, trust and engagement by the customers made it to sink and going like a submarine( I hope you can feel it what I am feeling). Finally thought of my online business give it a local push ( local marketing campaign with banners, flyers, poster and news paper ad) in and out of town, slowly started to receive phone calls and query and even quotation and slowly after 3 years of hanging out there in the market it is now being accepted ( 35%) and rest still a lot more marketing needs to be done. I can still feel it and feeling it.

    Nice post and thank you.

    Regards,
    Swrajit
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  • Profile picture of the author tjaysen70
    Yeah I know alot of IM guys that don't want to be in the spotlight, so they're hard to find details on. They like working in the shadows and just collect their checks. But if you work as an affiliate and sell someone else's product, then you can just use their sales skills and not worrying about being found.
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  • Profile picture of the author iJonathan
    Possible reasons I can think of for this :
    1. Internet marketing for many is a part time activity. With day job, being their job on their cards, IM helps them get those extra bucks. Even with success, some prefer to continue to work hidden (if thats the right word) for privacy reasons.
    2. Many IMers are introverts, atleast people I know.
    3. Identity doesnt matter as long as they are known by their internet id.

    There might be few more points. These are the things I can think of.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by fin View Post

      I think it's crazy leaving all that money on the table by not doing videos, etc.

      But I imagine they would rather stay hidden and are happy with what money they earn.

      Maybe they already own a tropical island.

      They also maybe have a pen name and need to keep some businesses hidden.
      Some of us also have names more common than we once thought.

      Google "John McCabe", and you'll find any number of occupations represented, including classical music composer and health food guru. The only musical instrument I play is the radio, and I would never pass for a health food expert...
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      • Profile picture of the author RogueOne
        Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

        Some of us also have names more common than we once thought.
        And then there is a Brent Stangel who apparently is a fashion guru of some kind in New York. He dominates search results for my name.
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  • Profile picture of the author brentb
    Many people get sucked into thinking everyone makes money the same way... make a blog, email capture, email list about yourself and how you made money or lost weight or whatever... OR sell a service, ie content services, seo etc.

    NO!

    Many people do things that have absolutely no connection with their personal self. For example in the past I used to make most of my money selling a service that only the top maybe 5 players in a particular niche could ever use or afford. I knew those people, they knew me. No point in me advertising or putting my name out there. Then I added traffic arbitrage into the mix and was doing about 5k/mo dealing with a huge companies self serve platform and one traffic selling self serve platform. No human contact required.

    I would not benefit from having a blog, nor do I want people to know the particulars of what I am doing, trade secrets and all... it also doesn't relate to my core business and I don't have time to work on something that's not part of my core income. Period.
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