The One Thing You Absolutely Need if You Want To Succeed Online

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I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: you can have the best products or services in the world, but without marketing your business will fail. In contrast, if you’ve got the marketing part down, you can sell ice to Eskimos.

We easily can see just how vital marketing is to our online businesses. Some may argue that it’s even more important than what the business actually has to offer. If it’s that important, then why do so many people go into business without a marketing plan? I can think of three reasons.

We forget.

Simply put, we just don’t think about it. We’re so caught up in shaping and creating our businesses, that we don’t think about what’s going to happen after its all setup and ready to go. People – part of your business should include a marketing plan! I believe that neglecting to even think about marketing is a primary reason why so many online businesses fail, including blogs.

As you can probably guess, a large percentage of blogs that are started end up being abandoned by their owners (poor blogs). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve clicked on a link or even searched for something and ended up on a blog where the last post was from 6-7 months prior. Someone has obviously spent a lot of time setting up these blogs and many contain excellent content that people have poured their hearts into. So why were they abandoned?

1. For some, because the owner didn’t realize how much time it took to maintain the blog and they couldn’t commit. FAIL.

2. For others, probably because they didn’t have the passion or drive to maintain the blog. They may have had the time, they just didn’t have the interest anymore. FAIL.

(These first two reasons are directly related to Question #1 of the Three Questions That Every Blogger Should Ask Themselves.)

3. And the primary reason: because they were not seeing the results they had hoped for with their blog. Hmm…and what is this directly related to?

Marketing.

Interesting.

(Please note that you can replace the word blog with “business”, “service” or whatever else you do or sell online.)

And I’m guilty too. In the past, I would go into projects without even thinking about what I was going to do after it was all setup. All I could think about was getting the project done, that there are other people making money doing the same thing that I was going to do so I should be ok, and how cool it would be if it took off and I made it big. I never thought about marketing – and all of those projects failed.

We Don’t Think Marketing is Necessary.

Many of us think that if our product or blog rocks, that it is unlike anything else out there, marketing isn’t necessary and amazing things will happen naturally. True – your creation may market itself simply by word of mouth, but the chances of this happening and you striking it big are very very slim. You want to strike it big right? I hope so, because anyone who hopes to just “do okay” is missing a few nuts and bolts.

Should you rely on this very very slim chance, or give yourself a better chance of hitting it big by marketing and promotion? If you think your product rocks and will sell itself, then you are either going to be really lucky, or really dissapointed. Probably really dissapointed.

Case in point. There are now over 78,000 iPhone apps in the App Store (via MobClix.com). Many talented developers are creating new, fun, creative and awesome apps every day. I’m a member a few iPhone developer forums and I see them for myself. These guys are programming geniuses – but a lot of them have apps that make little or no money. Not because their apps suck (most are actually really well done), but because they aren’t marketers.

Many of the top ranked iPhone apps have their own PR and Marketing teams, or have creative marketing campaigns that create buzz about the app. These independent iPhone developers that I follow are genius programmers, but not marketers, so many of them just simply submit their creations to Apple and hope for the best. In a sea of nearly 80,000 apps, there is absolutely no way they will get picked up. One or two might go big by chance, but its that “very very slim” chance like we were talking about earlier.

Just like in the app store, there’s an ocean of websites out there that will drown us out unless we can market our way to success, somehow.

We Don’t Know How to Market.

…Somehow. Yes – another reason why we don’t market is because we don’t know how. Marketing is huge, and there are so many aspects to it.

That’s why there are classes in Universities devoted to Marketing. You can even get your degree in Marketing and Advertising.

That’s why companies spend MILLIONS on marketing each year.

That’s why companies shoot commercials with Audrina Patridge in a bikini eating a Carl’s Jr. burger at the beach.

That’s why there is the Geico Gecko and an Aflac Duck.

And that’s why it’s hard for us…because we are not companies, and most of us probably don‘t have a Marketing and Advertising degree.

However, because we do business and blog on the Internet, we can easily see how other people do it – especially because we’re all about sharing information these days (like I am with you right now).

Here are a few examples of how you can market online. I may expand on a number of these in the future, but for the purposes of this post, this list should suffice and hopefully spark some ideas in your head if you’re getting into online business or blogging.

In no particular order:

• Networking and connecting with other bloggers/business types in the same field.
• Advertising (in places where your audience will see…very important) via methods like Google Adwords, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, etc.
• Creating an affiliate program/team for your product.
• Search engine optimization.
• Viral media.
• Holding a contest or a giveaway.
• Becoming a resource on related forums.
• Podcasting
• Leaving comments on related blogs.
• Re-connecting with customers (i.e. asking your customers that if they enjoyed your product to help spread the word)
• Newsletters
• Giving away FREE content (keyword: free)
• Submitting articles and press releases to article sites (also helps with SEO).
• Discounts / Sales
• Utilizing Social Networking (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Myspace, etc.)

Of course, many of these methods require some capital (I like to think of it as an investment), but many of them are also free, they just take some time. Please, if you have something to add to this list, feel free to leave it in a comment below.

Give Yourself the Best Chance

So if you’re online trying to make something happen, just setting up a business with a shopping cart and some products, or even just blogging and writing content isn’t everything. Don’t forget about marketing and how important it is.

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