It’s very possible – more like probable according to the latest statistics – that as an Internet Marketer you’re you having PROBLEMS…

-Grabbing and keeping surfers’ attention…

-Driving lots of targeted traffic to your Web site…

-Generating scores of quality leads and prospects…

-Building a huge, responsive mailing list…

-Making enough sales to cover your expenses (even though your goal is to make lots of money to do the things in life that you and your loved ones really want to do).

If you’re experiencing ANY of the disheartening problems mentioned above, a big reason for your lack of success could be that you’re making a marketing mistake of Xorkian proportions.

Many of you (especially baby boomers) will remember “Mork & Mindy”, the popular and funny sitcom of the late 70’s. Mork (Robin Williams) was an alien from Planet Ork sent to Earth to study human beings. He looked just like an earthling (though he did not behave like one) and lived in Boulder, Colorado, with beautiful Mindy (Pam Dawber).

I want you to imagine for a minute that Xork (Mork’s brother) and his girlfriend Xindy arrived on earth a couple of days ago. Now they’ve decided it’s time to learn to drive a car – the one parked in your driveway.

Having seen TV commercials about “filling up”, the first thing Xork does is to grab the garden hose and fill your near-empty gas tank with water.

What do you think will happen next? How quickly do you think Xork will learn to drive? How far will he go? You can pretty much figure out that the whole project will be a disaster.

Yet, the car is in great working order (except for the content of the tank), the keys are in the ignition (tsk tsk tsk…), the roads are fine, the weather is great, the instruction manual in the glove compartment is very informative and user-friendly, Xork and Xindy are patient students and they really want to learn. And yet, disaster looms. Why is that?

Because the ‘essential’ ingredient for the success of this endeavor is a tank full of gas. And in the scenario I just described, there’s no gas – just water. No matter how good the car, the road, the weather, the manual, the student or the intention, without gas Xork & Xindy ain’t gonna go nowhere.

Does that sound like some of your Internet marketing endeavors?

Here’s why that’s the case: no matter how many people are on the Internet, if you don’t have the ‘essential’ ingredient, you won’t have a whole lot of traffic. And without the ‘essential’ ingredient, the little traffic you’ll get will be made up of poor quality leads, they won’t sign up for your newsletter, they won’t join your business opportunity, they won’t buy your products or retain your services. And you might go broke as a result.

Now, let’s juxtapose your situation with the Orkans’ to bring the point home. No matter how good the car (your computer), the road (the Internet), the weather (the Marketplace), the instruction manual (all the Internet marketing strategies and techniques available), the student (the Internet surfer) or the intention (looking for a product or a service), without the ‘essential’ ingredient, your marketing – no matter what method you use – will be a flop. Without “gas”, you’re SOL – just like Xork & Xindy!

Well, if the ‘essential’ ingredient for Xork is gas, what’s the ‘essential’ ingredient that will make your Internet marketing take off like a Ferrari on steroids? It’s simply this: knowing precisely what makes people tick. If you don’t know that, you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Some of you might be slightly disappointed that the ‘essential’ ingredient is something so “ordinary”, so… common sense. It IS that, but as you are well aware, common sense is not common practice. What is baffling is that no sane person would think of starting a road trip with a thank full of water, and yet, those same “sane” marketers will start an Internet campaign with messages full of the wrong stuff, stuff no one really cares about – like features for example.

Look, do you want to succeed with your Internet marketing campaigns so you can make tons of sales so you can make lots of money so you can have some time freedom to enjoy your life? Do you?

Good answer! The sure-fire way to do the aforementioned is to be “in-the-know”.

What does “in-the-know” mean? It means knowing precisely what motivates people to act – to click, to subscribe, to sign-up, to join, to buy – to do anything, really. It’s knowing WHAT to say (or write) and WHEN to say it, and it’s knowing what NOT to say (not that you want to hide things, but for example, telling people all the details of HOW you would complete their tax return – aka the features – before you tell them WHY it’s important that it gets done properly – aka the benefits – will be a big waste of everybody’s time).

Now, as an Internet marketer, your chances of success at selling – as in trading goods or services for money, but also as in convincing, persuading, influencing – will improve significantly, perhaps even dramatically, if you are selling what the surfer is wanting to, ready to, and agreeable to buy! And to do that well and consistently, you MUST be in-the-know.

Here, for example, are three irrefutable and undeniable facts of life you become acutely aware of when you’re “in-the-know”:

-The most listened-to radio station on Earth is WIII-FM: What Is In It For Me?

-People buy on emotions… and then justify with facts.

-Everything people do, they do either out of their need to avoid/reduce pain, and/or their desire to gain/increase pleasure.

A successful Internet marketer is one who uses that knowledge – and the many other facts of life one learns when “in-the-know” – to design every element of his marketing campaign, keeping in mind at all times that the best possible selling-buying scenario is the one where, at the end of the deal, EVERYBODY WINS!

So, if Internet marketing success is key for you and your family living the Richer Life you all desire and deserve, do your research and your due diligence and find out all you can so that you are “in-the-know” about what will grab the surfers’ attention, what will make them get off their (key)board long enough to read your material, internalize your message, and follow your command – click, buy, join, subscribe – now!

The information is out there. Find it, and be “in-the-know”: it’s a matter of (Richer) life or (Internet) death!

Daniel G. St-Jean, BB, IMA, AMA

(BizzBooster, Internet Marketing Advisor, Article Marketing Alchemist)