There seems to be two extremes of marketing for new Internet businesses.

On one hand, there are the bricks and mortar businesses that suddenly wake up one day to this new fangled Internet-thing.  Seth Godin talks about this phenomena in his book, “Meatball Sundae.”  Two good ideas (meatballs and hot fudge)that are good on their own doesn’t mean they will work well together.  That’s the same thing that happens when a traditional business tries to jump into the Internet, using the same type of marketing strategies and trying to translate it to the Internet.  The problem is that the Internet is different and the information has brought with it a whole new way of marketing, pricing and delivery systems.

And then on the other hand, you can’t just put something up – like this blog for example – and hope that if you build it, they will come.  It takes savvy marketing and solid conversion to make an Internet business work. 

I’ve discovered a lot of things already through this project.  For example, Jorge (www.LatAmConnect.com) pointed out that my SEO sucks.  He was nicer about it when he told me, though.  He gave me a link to a site that assesses your current site.  I got one star out of five…not good.   My success had been completely due to the “old fashioned” marketing.  For example, I write articles for a number of magazines and am a contributor to still more.  I do a Wed AM radio show broadcasted through 3 states and do a monthly online work on eBay. I mention my website in everything I do. Plus, I have a bunch of books that all point people back to my website to register for free information. 

What I don’t have:

Google ads

SEO

Landing pages that promote conversion

eZine articles

PR releases

I’ll post more as I discover more holes in my marketing plan (which sounds like it won’t be hard to find…..  )