Adventures In Modern Marketing

The Great Internet Marketing Guru takes a few questions and concerns from his clients.

Let's listen in:

"My internet ad campaign was a total wash. I ended up taking a bath and nobody even visited my site!"

"Did you put boobs all over it like I told you to?"

"No, I thought that was too superficial and sensationalistic."

"And that would be why you failed. You forgot your audience is nothing but superficial and craves sensationalism."

"So what do I now?"

"Take a picture of your penis and put it on Craigslist."

"Okay ... but what is that gonna help?"

"Nothing. I just want you to relive the shame of former roommates of mine."

***

"I saw this ad making a claim I shouldn't buy a product. Should I believe it?"

"Of course! Ads were created to tell you what not to buy, not what to buy. So when an ad tells you to buy something, you know it's fake because they are trying to advertise to you. But when an ad tells you not to buy something, you know it's real because they are not advertising to you."

"Wait ... what?"

***

"So I got all these people reading my blog about tech and travel but I want to use my blog audience to expand my business promotions as well. How can I retool my blog without loosing readers?"

"It's easy: Dramatically announce you will be leaving the blog, probably the whole Internet, forever. Send that out and then wait a few days, then come back with some false tale of woe and then start selling hub caps and spark plugs off your blog-doohickey."

"That really works?"

"Oh yeah, totally! People usually use it to switch from catatonic to mildly psychotic instead of non-monetized to monetized, but all blogging is pretty much the same thing."

***

"I was thinking of opening up a singles dating service online and..."

"Get the hell out of my office."

***

"I heard that Twitter was the new tool for marketing professionals with the hottest and latest ideas."

"Who told you that?"

"That guy in the rabbit suit trying to give out fliers."

***

"Someone told me you could market products on Facebook more effectively than using banner services."

"Depends on what you mean by 'market.' If by that you mean annoy people and be ignored, then yes it is very effective."

***

"I bought up all my domain names and registered on every social network that exists. Is there anything else I should do before I set out to rule the digital landscape?"

"Yes. Hire a mafia. You are late to the game, the only way you'll get any traction now is to break kneecaps and go gangsta on Google."

***

Thus concludes another session of ultimate wisdom from The Great Internet Marketing Guru.