One Of The Biggest Mistakes Internet Marketers Make

Posted by Steven Wagenheim on August 08, 2010 in General, Marketing Articles

I’ve seen more than my share of mistakes in the seven plus years that I’ve been marketing online. If you lined them all up in a row, you could probably stretch them to the moon and back at least 10 times. Having said that, one of the biggest mistakes that I’ve seen Internet marketers make is one that I’d like to discuss in this article. If you’re making it yourself, you’re probably hurting yourself more than you realize.

Okay, so what is this God awful mistake? I’m talking about relying too much on numbers. There is an old saying that goes something like this…

“There are lies, there are damn lies and there are statistics.”

If you think that the three of them don’t all go together, please think again. Statistics and other numbers can lead one to such a false sense of security that by the time the bottom drops out, it’s too late.

One of the worst lies, as far as the numbers go, has to be keyword searches. Now, when I talk about lies, I’m actually talking on two levels here. So let’s take each one of these levels separately because they each mean something totally different.

On the one level, we have the actual number of searches for each keyword that are being reported by Google, Wordtracker or whatever your keyword tool of choice is. Take your pick because they’re all full of it.

Why do I say that? Well, for one thing, the numbers are estimates. Nobody really knows how many REAL searches there are. Go on, do a search on a phrase that you know absolutely NOBODY in their right mind would look up and then go to Google the next month or whenever and see how many searches there were for that phrase during the previous month. You’ll probably get something like “Not Enough Data”.

In other words, they don’t have a clue.

And the rest of the numbers, especially the really BIG ones, are equally suspect.

But let’s say, for argument sake, that these numbers are fairly accurate, which they’re not, but let’s say they are. On the second level of lies we have the worth of each keyword phrase.

This is where so many marketers lose the plot. They see a keyword phrase with 300,000 monthly searches and they immediately think to themselves, “Wow…this will get me a TON of traffic.” Well, maybe, assuming that this number is accurate.

But so what?

The people using that phrase to find whatever the heck it is they’re looking for…are they potential buyers? Does that keyword phrase give you ANY clue that these people have a credit card in their wallet that they’re willing to whip out and use?

I’d rather target a keyword phrase with 100 monthly searches where I am dead positive that those people have money to spend (especially if the average commission on that item is 4 figures) than target a keyword phrase that gets 300,000 monthly searches where I have absolutely NO idea if these people have any money to spend and are willing to spend it.

We get way too caught up on the numbers without looking at the substance BEHIND those numbers. And yes, this is one of the biggest mistakes Internet marketers make.

Another example is with opt in lists. Too many marketers look at the size of the list and not the quality of the people on it. Anybody can build a big list. But building a list that’s responsive is a whole different animal.

I could keep going but I think you got the point. The numbers do NOT tell the whole story. Get caught up in them and you could very well be missing what’s REALLY important.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of beating your head against a stone wall trying to make sense of numbers that make NO sense? Want to cut through to the meat and pinpoint your marketing right to that bulls eye? Let me take you personally by the hand and show you how.

Steven Wagenheim’s Personal Mentoring Program