There was a massive hoo-ha before the US election…
Well, okay, so there was LOTS of hoo-ha.
But in one of the many weird stories, Donald Trump was accused of believing the earth was flat.
Turns out that this stemmed from a hoax article but…
It revealed that many people in the USA believe the flat earth theory to be true… or at least spend a lot of energy arguing it to be the case.
You know about the flat earth idea, right?
Most people think it goes like this…
Until the middle ages everyone thought the world was flat, like a massive table.
Sailors believed that if they kept following the horizon, they’d eventually fall off the side of the world.
… And then we became more scientific and sensible and discovered that the world was round.
But even this version of history is fake news…
The idea that in the middle ages we all used to believe that the earth was flat is poppycock.
It was a myth first propagated by a small group of people in the 17th century (and then made popular 19th and 20th centuries) to prove that religion clashed with science.
The general purpose being to show that we’d been ‘saved’ by the clever people in charge of the world today.
It was complete and utter propaganda.
As the historian Jeffrey Burton Russell points out, “with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the Earth was flat”
The reality is that from the time of the Ancient Greeks (possibly even earlier) most educated human beings believed that the world was spherical.
Which means that even the history of the flat earth theory is a fake history.
See? FAKE NEWS is no recent thing.
The same goes for a lot of online business marketing advice.
Beware the flat earth marketers
It’s in some people’s interest to convince you that growing your business is incredibly complicated.
I’m referring to those Internet marketers and gurus who dub themselves undisputed masters of the latest craze.
They focus entirely on gizmos and tools and backdoor strategies rather than genuine marketing principles.
They boast of how the latest “easy” shortcut suddenly made them rich…
… or how they KNEW something would work before they even tried it.
Well, sorry. But most of them are talking crap.
And they make it harder for you to see a clear way forward.
They bamboozle you with techniques which they claim will ‘magically solve problems for you’… most of which you don’t even need.
There are so many choices thrown at you, it’s bewildering…
Blogging, email marketing, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, Vimeo, WordPress, Mailchimp, videos, pop-ups, mobile marketing, QR codes…
… they form a thick fog of choices that make it hard to see clearly.
The reality is that it doesn’t need to be that complicated.
All these different tools, platforms and networks are simply enhancers. They can open you up to new markets and get you where you need to be a lot faster, but they can’t make something from nothing (like many of the so-called gurus make out).
First and foremost you need to have a desirable product or service.
Then you need to find a way to seek out those people who might want it and persuade them that you’re the business to get it from.
To do this there are basic business and marketing principles that anyone can follow. These haven’t changed just because the world is online.
We can have all the tech babble, software robots and fancy Internet marketing gizmos in the world.
But when it comes down to it, the Internet is simply a faster, easier way of doing old-fashioned business, using principles that have been around for centuries.
And if you understand that, you’ll save a lot of time, heartache, wasted money and dead ends.
It’s these principles that we’re going to focus on this year.
Of course we’ll show you the platforms and tech tools that work and how to use them (and there are some fantastic ones) but the marketing principles will be at the core of everything we do.
Just remember that the world of online business isn’t necessarily as many gurus and experts TELL you it is.
Hopefully we can show you a simpler, more direct way to find new customers and grow your business.
But to make the service even better, we do need your help…
So if you have any specific problems you want advice on, or goals you want to reach, then please let us know. You can leave a comment below or email me direct at the usual address.
So the question is still the same old one, namely how to make people aware of your product or service amid the clamour of other people selling things? How?!?
” How?!?”
Use an innovative solution. Go to a remote field on a cold winter night and bury your head in a cowpat. The sales will rocket due to this innovative approach!
Oh, and refuse to tell people about your product – that way you will fire up their curiosity. All simple psychology basically!
Hi Maryon, that is a great question and definitely one we will try and cover for you in more detail over the coming weeks in DU. The first thing is to pinpoint what’s unique/different about your product or service and use that as your hook in your marketing. It doesn’t necessarily have to mean that your product is unique in of itself, it just has to have a unique benefit that makes it stand out from your competition. Remember those pens they used to sell that had indestructible nibs (you could pierce through coke cans and other hard objects)? Ultimately it was just pen and did the same job as a bog standard biro – but all the crazy muscle man stuff made it quirky. People were sold on a benefit that didn’t even know they needed/wanted. That’s the kind of thing which will make you stand out. Once you’ve established that hook you need to get the message out to your target audience – which is less tricky than you might think. You can do this freely by blogging, building up an email list and tweeting and using social media. Start by checking out relevant online forums and groups and connect with people who’s problem your product solves. Then give them something for nothing (some free advice, a sample, that kind of thing) and if they like this offer them your premium product. Or if you want faster results you can take a shortcut and use paid advertising. I would recommend using Facebook for this because you can really niche down your audience on their advertising platform – not just by basic demographics like age or gender but by very specific interests, such competitors that they already follow (this is incredibly useful) and location and industry.
Unfortunately the article is founded on a false premise, namely that the Earth ISN’T flat. And yet it certainly is, because numerous verses of the perfect Qur’an, rightly believed by billions, tell us that the Earth is laid out like a carpet, and none even suggest it’s like a ball. And then verses 18:86-1:94 point out that the sun sets in a muddy spring at the end of the flat Earth.