Thousands of people come online everyday hoping to find online riches. They come online to learn how to do marketing. Often times, what they find is information presented in such a way that further bolsters their dream. More to the point, most of the information presented are scams. Here is how it usually works.

An inexperienced “wannapreneur” comes online and does a search on “how to make money with the internet.” She finds pages and pages of “how to do marketing” information. She tries a little bit of this, she tries a little bit of that, she sees another offer showing her the online promise land and pursues yet another path … in the end, nothing works. She doesn’t know how to do marketing … or does she?

Look, marketing is really about generating demand for a product or service that has value to a target customer, that’s it. Let’s take an example like marketing a service.

A service that everyone can relate to is “You.” Even if you work for someone, you instinctively know how to generate demand for your service. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be working. You successfully convinced your target customer — your boss — that you have value. You did a number of things right to generate demand for you in the eyes of your employer. That “number of things” is your marketing mix.

Marketing is about combining these number of things into the right mixture for your target customer. The mix contains the 4 P’s:

1. Product
2. Placement
3. Price
4. Promotion

Continuing with our example, the Product is you. Another useful way to look at the Product is in terms of the “offer.” What do you have to offer to your target customer? It could be your experience, your willingness to work particular hours, your contacts, and anything else that you can combine into a valuable offer for your target customer.

The second P is Placement. Where can you market your service? If you are a dental hygienist, the obvious place to market your product is to dentists.

The third P is Price. How much should you charge for your service? As an employee, a good place to start is the going rate for your type of position. If a dental hygienist gets paid within the range of $30K and $75K per year, you would price yourself accordingly based on your “offer.” In other words, how much value can you offer your target customer? Value determines price.

The fourth P is Promotion. How will you advertise your Product? This is where most people coming online get seduced. They are told that somehow the internet magically creates demand and sales without promotion. This is simply not true. The internet is only one of many sales channels for your product. In fact, it should be a part of your promotion mix, but not necessarily your only way to promote.

Returning to our example, you would not do well if you only promoted the fact that you are offering your dental hygienist services on Craigslist. You would do a better job of promotion if you also included word-of-month, newspapers, referrals, and personal relationships.

So does a new “wannapreneur” know how to do marketing? Of course they do. They just have to remember that they know how.

DONOTCHANGE