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Home » Computers And Internet Articles » The Miraculous Conversion

The Miraculous Conversion

http://www.ideavirus.com

The recent bloodbath among online content peddlers and digital media proselytisers can be traced to two deadly sins. The first was to assume that traffic equals sales. In other words, that a miraculous conversion will spontaneously occur among the hordes of visitors to a web site. It was taken as an article of faith that a certain percentage of this mass will inevitably and nigh hypnotically reach for their bulging pocketbooks and purchase content, however packaged. Moreover, ad revenues (more reasonably) were assumed to be closely correlated with "eyeballs". This myth led to an obsession with counters, page hits, impressions, unique visitors, statistics and demographics.

It failed, however, to take into account the dwindling efficacy of what Seth Godin, in his brilliant essay ("Unleashing the IdeaVirus"), calls "Interruption Marketing" - ads, banners, spam and fliers. It also ignored, at its peril, the ethos of free content and open source prevalent among the Internet opinion leaders, movers and shapers. These two neglected aspects of Internet hype and culture led to the trouncing of erstwhile promising web media companies while their business models were exposed as wishful thinking.

The second mistake was to exclusively cater to the needs of a highly idiosyncratic group of people (Silicone Valley geeks and nerds). The assumption that the USA (let alone the rest of the world) is Silicone Valley writ large proved to be calamitous to the industry.

In the 1970s and 1980s, evolutionary biologists like Richard Dawkins and Rupert Sheldrake developed models of cultural evolution. Dawkins' "meme" is a cultural element (like a behaviour or an idea) passed from one individual to another and from one generation to another not through biological -genetic means - but by imitation. Sheldrake added the notion of contagion - "morphic resonance" - which causes behaviour patterns to suddenly emerged in whole populations. Physicists talked about sudden "phase transitions", the emergent results of a critical mass reached. A latter day thinker, Michael Gladwell, called it the "tipping point".

Seth Godin invented the concept of an "ideavirus" and an attendant marketing terminology. In a nutshell, he says, to use his own summation:

"Marketing by interrupting people isn't cost-effective anymore. You can't afford to seek out people and send them unwanted marketing, in large groups and hope that some will send you money. Instead the future belongs to marketers who establish a foundation and process where interested people can market to each other. Ignite consumer networks and then get out of the way and let them talk."

This is sound advice with a shaky conclusion. The conversion from exposure to a marketing message (even from peers within a consumer network) - to an actual sale is a convoluted, multi-layered, highly complex process. It is not a "black box", better left unattended to. It is the same deadly sin all over again - the belief in a miraculous conversion. And it is highly US-centric. People in other parts of the world interact entirely differently.

You can get them to visit and you get them to talk and you can get them to excite others. But to get them to buy - is a whole different ballgame. Dot.coms had better begin to study its rules.

And here is another random article you might be interested in...

Self-Confidence Is The Key To Personal And Professional Success

In my audio program Book Yourself Solid, The 7 Keys To Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even If You Hate Marketing And Selling, I focus on the nitty gritty of what to do to get loads of clients but the real key and what I try to deep into is what you need to do for yourself to take action.

I think there are only two reasons for most any business problem:

1. You dont know what to do
2. You know what to do but youre not doing it

And, I also think that 90% of all business problems stem from number two. When I say business problems I mean why we dont achieve what we say we want to achieve or why we dont do what we say we want to do.

So, of course, the next question you might ask is why dont we do what we know how to do? And the answer is. we havent built up the self-confidence needed for the goal at hand.

Look learning is easy accumulating knowledge is easy. There are lots of people who know what you need to know and are willing to share the information with you. So, again why arent you doing what you say you want to do? Again, I say not enough self-confidence.

Were born with high levels of confidence in certain areas and not in others. And its different for all of us. But well need different levels of confidence depending on what we want to do with our lives. It takes one level of confidence to give a speech in front of 5 people and another level of confidence to give a speech in front of 500 and again, another level of confidence to speak in front of 5000. So, if youre not working on developing your confidence and thinking bigger about who you are and what you offer the world, you very well may not put yourself in situations where youd have an opportunity to present in front of 5000 people.

There are two very simple things I recommend to solve this profoundly important problem:

1. Learn in action
2. Develop a self-confidence plan

First, learn in action. Learning in action is the key to success when venturing into uncharted territory. You cant wait to have all the answers. You certainly dont want to go out in the world half-baked but you dont need a Doctorate in marketing to create awareness for the solutions that you provide or a Masters in public speaking to give a speech.

This is a big problem for many people waiting until they are sure that they have all the info they could possibly have about how to do something before theyll try it. Its just not effective and stems from a lack of self-confidence.

I feel that if you do nothing else as a personal and business building strategy, work on building up your self confidence so youll be able to do everything that you say you want to do.

And second, develop a self-confidence plan. I do affirmations every day. In the morning when I wake up and at night before I go to sleep. Well, actually, I only do them Monday through Friday but that should cover you.

Read Napoleon Hills inspirational classic Think and Grow Rich for a plethora of affirmations that will help you build your self-confidence.

And in closing dont forget to have a mad passionate love affair with yourself. Love, embrace and believe in yourself. I know how realistic it is to become wildly successful. You can totally create an abundant, joyful and prosperous business life if youre willing to do the work.