|
A Week in the Life of an Internet Marketer
aka: Cyber-Sh#@
Happens!!
by Rick Beneteau
A Positive Preface
Before I begin, I
want you to know that I am the eternal optimist. Just ask anyone who
knows me. So much so, I've become a master of twisting and turning
the negatives into positives.
I am writing this on
Friday evening. Everyone knows though that Netrepreneurs live in
Internet Time and usually never know what day of the week it is.
Monday is like Thursday is like Sunday. However I am going to assume
for the sake of this article (and my sanity) that this IS the last
day of one of the worst weeks in cyber-history. At least for me.
Now I'm not quite to
the point of resurrecting all that has happened these past five days
because it's too soon, but let me tell you about MY week.
Setting the (Trap
Door on the) Stage
Having made the
decision to venture out on my own with a brand new company
http://www.interniche.net, this week was supposed to be the start of launching one of my new
projects. And I was as excited as a tyke in a toystore!
It involved my good
friend, Marlon Sanders. He offered me a generous lead time to
promote a great, inexpensive new marketing tutorial called "Discover
the Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy!"
http://www.higherresponse.com/track/t.cgi/8030. Perfect timing, as my new affiliate program was still a week away
from launching.
Monday: Unleashing
the Beast
I prepare my
newsletter supplement to offer this wonderful tool and its 7 FREE
BONUSES to my 4000 Mirror subscribers and mail it out. A new article
submission (with a soft-shoe pitch about this product in the cover
letter) to the ezine/newsletter editors is readied and I press the
send button. As expected, orders start flooding in immediately.
GREAT!!
Within 2 hours, my
main site is down! Webhost is contacted and although normally
patient with this sort of thing, I'm not in this situation. But they
are SLOW with an answer let alone a solution. Day turns to night and
I'm receiving a range of emails from people politely informing me
that the site is unavailable to the rather crude "why would send me
a product I can't access?". Webhost is still not offering a
resolution.
Exhausted, I go to
bed knowing I'm losing sales and my customers are losing out on a
great product. Not to mention I look a little foolish!
Tuesday: The Law of
that Renowned Irishman (that would be "Murphy")
Up early and my site
is back up!! What to do? Well, an apology is certainly due even
though I realize that most of my subscribers won't give a cyber-care
about my techno-excuse.
So I double-check my
site and the order form and all is well. I email everyone informing
them everything is now functioning properly. As the last email seeps
out of my system, I visit both pages again and guess what? The
server the order form is on is down!
Still morning but
felt like pouring a steep drink, going back to bed and re-reading
"Why Bad Things Happen to Good People". This secure server is 'free'
and normally reliable but as with all things free, something suffers
and guess what? It's support!
Balance of the day is
spent fielding email regarding "round 2" of this fiasco. Some of it
is nasty. Like I'm doing this on purpose just to inconvenience
people.
Sweet dreams are not
a possibility this night either.
Wednesday: A Silver
Lining?
The article
submission from Monday has borne some great results. Quite a few
publications are going to feature my new article, including one of
the Internets largest. The very next day too!
Downside is the
secure server is still down. And it remains so all day and evening.
Seems like I wasn't destined to sell this particular product.
Decision time. Get my programmer to set up a new order form on
another server. Might still salvage a few sales. Of course, this is
never a quick process so it's a waiting game.
And I wait....and I
wait....and I wait...
Thursday: The Cloud
Bursts
Morning's email
floods in and voila!...my article in fact appears in this major zine.
Super! My new company needs the hits this will generate. But guess
what? They published my old "bio" which points the readers to the
business I had sold my interest in a few months ago. The silver
lining was black-holed!
I, of course request
a retraction in the next day's issue, which is agreed to. At least
there will be some salvage to this blooper.
Just prior to
knocking off for the night I notice that ticklish little feeling in
my throat. You know, the one that foreshadows those terrible winter
viruses we all seem to get just when we figured we beat the cold and
flu season. Nothing to do with my marketing nightmare, but a little
icing on the cake of my story.
TGIF
Remember I said I was
the eternal optimist? Woke up with the feeling that nothing was
going to make this the Titanic of weeks for me. No wind or sleet or
cough or ezine owner who thinks I've totally lost it. Nothing!
My attitude is
positive! My new order form is ready! My regular newsletter will go
out in advance this weekend with the "vow" that they can now
"really" access my product. I will send "another" article to the
ezine owners with my tongue-in-cheek version of this story. My
correct information will appear in today's issue of that major
ezine. I was going to be exonerated! Some of my reputation will be
repaired!
This is the point
where the subtitle of the article really comes into play. I no
sooner prepare all of the above elements than into my inbox waltzes
that ezine with the retraction. And then some really ugly email
follows from readers about how terrible my article was. People were
calling me Ernie (fictitious name)! Two of them even sent me that
nasty Happy99 virus. And I already had a real one!
Well it turns out
this zine goofed again and put my email address where this author's
belonged. And readers really didn't care for what this person had
written.
Now is this not the
epitomy of the kind of luck that only Martin Short could have?
Lessons and Other
Things Learned
1. Cyber-Sh#@ really
does happen!
2. Even the big guns
goof a lot!
3. I will somehow
make this all work for me!
4. People don't like
Ernie's articles!
5. You never really
beat the cold and flu season!
6. My product IS
REALLY available right now!
Written by Rick
Beneteau
© 1998 InterNiche.net
Rick Beneteau is the
highly acclaimed author of the new, top-selling eBook, Branding YOU
and Breaking the Bank.
Spend what he
guarantees will be the most important few minutes you'll spend on
the Internet and Start Branding YOU and Breaking the Bank:
http://www.brandingyourself.com |