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- Internet Marketing is "Dead"
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Today we’ll be discussing why Internet Marketing is "dead."
In particular, how to market your business online in a world where nothing is new and your prospects have seen it all before.
Let’s dive in.
Learn about a platform focused on payment processing, financing clients, deal closing, financial management, and affiliate management that enables coaches and digital entrepreneurs who sell courses and services online, to scale their business.
They work with major brands, including Tai Lopez, Alex Hormozi, and Ryan Pineda, that have scaled their businesses to millions a month in revenue.
I, the founder of Passionate Income, filmed a video sharing my experience…
Watch it here.
Earlier today I thought I'd check in on the Internet Marketing world by visiting one of the industry's premiere education sites: Strategic Profits.*
*Not an affiliate link, not an endorsement.
Why?
Because Strategic Profits - run by Internet Marketing veteran Rich Schefren - is arguably the #1 source of cutting edge information for what's working in the direct response digital marketing space.
Know what I found?
A bunch of videos discussing (supposedly) new twists on strategies that have - in reality - been around for years.
Which is precisely what I expected.
See, direct response has always been this type of fringe, Wild Wild West sub-niche of the much larger marketing industry.
Even from the industry's early days, when advertisers relied on direct mail and newspaper ads, neither the niche itself - or the players who operate in it - have ever commanded as much respect as larger and more traditional players.
And for good reason: Many of the tactics employed by DR marketers (which they refer to as "persuasion") are unethical if not downright illegal.
In spite of its downsides, direct response has managed to stay relevant all these years because of one small caveat:
When done right, it can be an absolute money printer.
Which is what attracts people (most of which are young men) to Internet Marketing in the first place.
But as consumers become more sophisticated, direct response Internet Marketing tactics have stopped working on all but the most fringe offers.
The proof?
As someone who started in 2015, I've seen the industry transform over the last decade. And as someone who exited the industry for ethical reasons in 2020, I occasionally pop back in to see what my old contacts are up to.
But over the last few years, I've found myself checking in and immediately checking out. Why?
Because the industry stalled out.
When I first got started in the industry, there was always something new and exciting happening. From SEO blackhat link building to the invention of Facebook Ads, new platforms were being launched all the time.
And with every new traffic platform came an opportunity to exploit its loopholes.
Which, in turn, led to new opportunities (from being a guru who teaches said thing, to using the actual tactics in your business).
If you look at the progression of marketing platforms, however, we haven't had anything new come out since TikTok.
Yes, ChatGPT went mega viral last year.
Which resulted in plenty of gurus launching "how to ____ with AI" programs.
Unfortunately, AI's abilities are limited within a true business productivity context. And because of that, most people ended up disappointed with the results they got from said programs.
Which brings us back to the fact the Internet Marketing hasn't done anything new since gurus latched onto TikTok in the late 2010s / early 2020s.
Google Trend data for the keyword: ClickFunnels
As an example, searches for ClickFunnels - which set the industry on fire in 2016 - are at a five year low.
Same for the term "copywriter," which achieved peak interest at the tail-end of the pandemic (given most copywriting work is done on a freelance basis from home) but has since entered into a steady decline.
Using another metric, traffic to the Internet Marketing hub mentioned above - Strategic Profits - is down approximately 8% over the last month alone, attracting just 25,000 monthly visitors on average (per SimilarWeb).
Sure, these are just a handful of data points.
But when we look at interest in the industry as a whole, it's clear the golden days of Internet Marketing are coming to an end.
Not because marketing on the Internet doesn't work anymore.
But because the cutting edge, "let's exploit a loophole" strategies the industry has relied on for the past two decades no longer exist.
Instead, everything that used to be cutting edge - from email to Meta ads to short-form videos - has become old news. Mainstream. Boring.
And with no new platforms to exploit, there aren't any loopholes left for the gurus to build courses or coaching programs around.
Not to mention, with most of their target audience (Millennials) having been burned by low quality courses and even worse "high ticket coaching" programs, the number of people these gurus can sell to is running thin.
On the flip side, legitimate digital marketing is at an all-time high (from both an adoption, market cap and effectiveness point of view).
Whether it's building a Faceless Instagram Page (like what we teach here at Passionate Income), or running Google Ads to attract patients to your dental practice, marketing on the web is alive and well.
What's dying, however, are the aggressive tactics and exploitative opportunities sold by unethical gurus in hopes of making a fast buck.
Sure, a handful are still clinging to their old ways.
But like the joke about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, both the data and anecdotal evidence show their days are numbered.
💡 Takeaway: While digital marketing is alive and well, the outdated and overly aggressive "Internet Marketing" industry is dying a slow death.
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