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Are you Coca Cola, or are you Tesco Value Cola?
By Daniel Flower | October 13, 2008
It seems like everyone wants to be a ‘guru’ in internet marketing, and most people’s idea of doing that is to find a guru and replicate them. Do what they do. Do it how they do it. And you’ll be a guru. That’s the idea anyway.
Which is fine and I agree with this, but only up to a point.
Take a look around at all the successful guys and you’ll find that they all have their own identity too - their own personality - their own brand. The one’s that stick in your mind all have their own unique story of how they became internet marketers. They have their own ideas about what they want out of life. They are very different people, not just ’some guy or girl’ on the internet that makes money online.
In short the people I buy from the most are those who I feel like I ‘know.’ Now obviously I’m using that term loosely because in the vast majority of cases I’ve never personally met the person in question, but I have this image inside my head of what they are like.
And if you can identify with that chosen lifestyle or personality then it’s very powerful.
The way I see things is that you need to become a person, not just another internet marketer. If you’re pretty sure that someone is making money then YES look at what they do and try to incorporate that into your own business, BUT do it in your own way. Put your own slant on things. Become someone to remember, not just another clone.
Basically create your own brand…
The most powerful brands stay in your mind, and create a message inside your brain that makes you purchase it time and time again.
It’s exactly the same in internet marketing as it is in the supermarket. So are you the leading brand, or just a clone of it? Are you Coca Cola, or are you Tesco Value Cola?
I know which one I want to be, but I’m also pretty sure that I could try harder.
Brands are funny things too because the reality is often very different to what you have inside your head. Going back to internet marketing, sometimes you’ve followed an internet ‘guru’ for quite a long time, and then maybe you meet them, or you speak to them, and they’re different to what you were expecting. They speak differently, they look different, or whatever it might be.
But the more you know about someone the more you feel like you KNOW them. The internet can make it difficult to let yourself shine through because we’re not all meeting face to face. But if you can successfully break through the barrier then it can only be a good thing. I want to feel like I know who I’m buying from, and in the vast majority of cases those are the people who I DO buy from.
Maybe it would be interesting to do some kind of test. Write down a list of the people you follow online, and sum them up in a few words. Try to work out WHY you buy from them. What is it about them that makes you tick?
Create a brand around yourself. I’m still working on mine - but I want it to be young, dynamic, and a simple common sense approach to internet marketing.
Topics: Dan's Blog |