Select, Don't Accumulate

Why Internet Marketing has it (mostly) Wrong

By Ian Lurie

Rock-throwing, to start things off: It's all your fault

Internet Marketing. Did your nose just wrinkle when you read those two words? Just a little? Something smells bad, the same way you feel just a little guilty grabbing all the free schwag at a tradeshow, or snitching a french fry from your kid's plate.

Internet marketing feels just a little, well, dirty. Why? Because most internet marketing is greedy, not smart, and it leaves everyone — the agencies that practice it, and their clients — tarnished.

Typical internet marketing revolves around a drive to get more traffic, no matter what. Viral marketing, search marketing, e-mail marketing (not spam), spam, banner ads, pay per click marketing — name the method, and 98% of marketers use them as blunt instruments in a get-all-the-traffic-and-let-God-sort-it-out kind of way. Never mind whether that traffic represents truly qualified potential customers. Never mind the cost of driving useless traffic. Just keep 'em coming!

Everyone — clients and marketing professionals alike — is to blame for this. We've all said “more traffic!” at least once in our careers. But as the Internet matures, so does Internet marketing, and it's time to present a solution: Select traffic. Don't accumulate it.

A Little Analogy

Here's an analogy for the “select don't accumulate” concept: Let's imagine there are two small farmers markets, right next door to each other, and you're shopping for a head of lettuce.

You see a sign saying “Yes, we have leafy green vegetables” and head into that market. It's huge, and really quite striking. You can enter this market through 40 or 50 doorways. Once inside, there are thousands of stalls, neatly side by side, all clamoring for attention. Fruits, vegetables and foodstuffs of every kind are perfectly formed, brightly colored, ready-for-the-film-shoot little packages of nutritional goodness. Next to each stall are lists of the awards this market has won for design and layout. It's like walking through a food museum. It's great.

But you can't find the damned lettuce. And neither can anyone else. In fact, they're not even sure they HAVE lettuce in there. They have cabbage, kale, and some spinach that would make a rabbit swoon, but no lettuce. You're walking around with thousands of other people, trying to find what you need, but no dice. Even worse, there are thousands MORE people outside, trying to get in to buy spinach and cabbage and kale, but they can't, because of all the lost lettuce seekers. You finally fight your way out, exasperated.

As you leave, you see a new sign: “Yes, we have lettuce” You follow the arrows, warily, into a different market. This market doesn't gleam quite like the other one. It all looks edible, delicious, even, but the stalls aren't shiny, and the products aren't quite as Platonically perfect.

But guess what? You see lettuce. Right in front of you. All kinds of lettuce. Big lettuce, small lettuce, lettuce that looks like famous people. You find what you want, buy it, and you're done.

What just happened? The first market was gleaming, perfect in every way. But you didn't stick around, and you didn't buy anything. Instead, you bought from the other, perfectly functional but infinitely less glamorous market.

It's obvious: The Decent Market told you they had what you needed, showed it to you, and then you bought it. They conducted very efficient marketing based on what you, the consumer, want. The Gorgeous Market implied they had what you needed, then blindfolded you, spun you around three times and sent you packing.

Put another way, the Decent Market selected you as a good potential customer. The Gor- geous Market is simply collecting as many passersby as it can - they're engaging in Accumulation Marketing.