On the odd occasion, when I go to a party, some people ask me, "What do I do for a living?" And this question sometimes makes me cringe.
"Why does it make me cringe?" Well, I do not like to see other people's reaction when I tell them the answer.
That is because the answer is, "I am an Internet Marketer.
" Now maybe, I should really change the type of people I hang around with.
Or, maybe I need to change my profession.
But most likely what I need to do is to better explain what it is I do.
So, what is Internet Marketing? Well, to explain what Internet Marketing is, I have to tell you what a Market is.
A Market is a place where goods and services exchange hands according to the laws of supply and demand.
The laws of supply and demand dictate that if there is a need for any given good or service, someone will step in and fill that demand with the supply thereof.
Now that seems all very well and nice, but in this day and age Internet Marketing gets blamed for a lot of the bad and evil things that is going on in this world.
For example, it is a perennial ethos.
The consumer is responsible for the degradation of our environment and the planet as a whole.
And to be quite honest, I think that this is probably a pretty accurate characterization of the status quo.
But, is it possible that there is both good and bad or good and evil Internet Marketing out there? In other words, is it possible that as it is with all other things, power can be used for both Good and power can be used for Bad and power can be used for evil? Well, to answer that question, I pretty will have to answer, "What is Internet Marketing".
Simply put, if Internet Marketing is nothing more than a situation where goods and services exchange hands according to the laws of supply and demand, then Internet Marketing is the act of bringing things to the Internet Marketplace.
Now, if the laws of supply and demand are right, and I like to think that they are, then if you bring something to Internet Marketing, it is because there is already a demand for it.
If there is not a demand for it, then what you are doing is pretty much in violation of the laws of supply and demand, of basic Internet Marketing Principles.
However, it would not quite be fair to say that Internet Marketing is simply bringing something to Internet Marketing.
In other words, basically, if you are thirsty and I sell you a glass of lemonade, that would make me a Marketer, but it does not.
"So, what does an Internet Marketer do?" Well, simply put, an Internet Marketer stimulates demand in the marketplace.
Now, there are those out there who like to postulate that what brought on The Great Depression was an over abundance of supply and not enough demand.
(By definition postulate means that is not proved or demonstrated but considered to be either self-evident, or subject to necessary decision.
Therefore, its truth is taken for granted, and serves as a starting point for deducing and inferring other theory dependent truths.
) One of the greatest lessons we learned from The Great Depression was that marketing, in general, is pretty much a necessary component of a prosperous economy.
Or that Marketing is a necessary component of a growth economy.
Because when the economy stops growing, it crashes.
It is kind of like a bird that way.
If the bird wants to stay up, the bird has to keep flapping it's wings.
But back to my initial problem, what about stimulating demand? Well, there are two ways you can go about doing this: 01.
The first way is to recognize something that people might want but have never had, and develop it.
This is the Product Development approach to Internet Marketing.
For example, during the Ice Age, the man who invented fire might be characterized as a Marketer.
02.
The second way to stimulate demand is that what fuels the growth economy as a whole.
Simply put, you think up some type of product or service that you enjoy doing or think is cool and would like to make some extra money providing it to others and then you can convince people that they need it too.
Now it is this type of marketing that probably gets Internet Marketers as a whole, a bad reputation.
And if you think about it, that kind of marketing makes sense, because the entire growth economy is built around superfluous goods and services.
And is that in producing all these superfluous goods and services that will destroy the environment and the planet as a whole.
But does that mean that all marketing is bad? Well, of course it does not.
The fact of the matter is the full range of all activities in human society are not either Good, Bad or Evil as a rule.
It just so happens that the tragedy of the excellencies of human existence is that a vast majority of our actions tend to be cast in an evil manner.
By evil, I mean they do bad things and make people kind of scared.
What I am getting at is that marketing as a rule is not Bad or Evil.
It is just powerful.
And power corrupts.
Just like absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But enough of the clich attitudes.
What I am getting at is that marketing is a powerful tool in order to make a lot of money.
It just so happens that most people are interested in making a lot of cash only.
They really only care about the excessive amount of money they can make and not about the consequences of their actions.
These people, when it comes to stimulating the demand, will do so by preying on your insecurities, fears, uncertainties, and doubt.
For instance, beauty products.
The marketers of these products tell you that getting old is a bad thing.
Yet in other non-consumer societies, old age is actually viewed as character trait.
Kind of like wisdom.
So, "What is Internet Marketing in a nutshell?" It is not something that is either good or bad.
It is just something that stimulates the demand for supply in the marketplace.
It is whether that supply contributes to the well-being of the individual or society as a whole that makes the marketer create a demand for the individual or society as a whole, good or bad.
What I am getting at ladies and gentlemen, is that Internet Marketing, like the full range of human activities, is very much beyond good and evil or good and bad.