bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

Given the huge amount of fun I had last time with Pay What You Want Marketing Advice  I have decided to bring it back for good.

Why did I do it as an experiment? To limit my downside of course.  As I found there was no downside, it was all a challenge and hugely fun.  So now it’s back…

For those who are new the gist is:

You email me with your problems, questions, questions on strategy.

Anything Internet Marketing related.

Who is this suited for? Any kind of business, maybe your a small business who hasn’t ventured online, a tourism business, owner operator, b2b, b2c….

You probably have made cuts of your marketing expenditure.

And so you should if it has questionable returns.

BUT with internet marketing you can measure your returns. Down to the dollar.

If you know how.

So to help clear misreprentations about it and encourage spending in internet marketing I am doing this.

The catch? Well the catch is I ask you to pay me what you think my information to help you out is worth to you. If its worth nothing pay nothing, if its worth $250 pay that. Up to you, no pressure, my aim is to help you.

I just want to repeat that, my aim is to help you!

Basically you email me [email protected] with the subject line ‘pay what you want’, I give you a hand, you pay me what you think it’s worth via paypal.  It is probably the best way to get advice from me without committing to a contract.

Please note a few things:

1) Give me some background information about your company, clients (in the email).  I can clear up to several thousand emails in a busy week so if you have all the information in the email helps me out (vs a web address for more info).

2) If I help you, could you post feedback in the comments below (good or bad, mostly good Im sure)

3) Forward to friends this post to help them out.

The term Internet Marketing is dying.  

Not quite but that is where it’s going, Internet Marketing will be the cornerstone of the Marketing mix, in fact it is going to be the defining characteristic of companies built from this point in time.

Don’t believe me? Talk to me in five years, remind me I’m wrong.

We won’t be referring to Internet Marketing it will just be Marketing and of that they internet will be a key component.

Having worked with a number of Internet Start Ups over the years I have experienced these barriers first hand.

• Marketing viewed as an expense. Start / Stop.
• Wanting full control of content. Users MUST subscribe to access content.
• Every Search Engine Ad needs my Brand in it.
• Marketing is advertising. We don’t do that.
• Voice overs are a great way to engage [scare off] users.
• Instant results are best.
• All communications must include a sales pitch.
• Marketing is a mechanism to boost the entrepreneurs ego.
• Conversations starting with “If only….”.
• Entrepreneurs afraid of success.

On the flipside to break down these barriers:

• Marketing is an investment. Treat it as such. Continual investment yields the best results. (Ever heard of compounding?).
• Marketing is in every interaction in your business. Some companies marketing is that they focus all their energy into making a great product, think Google.
• If your holding the business back maybe its time to step aside.
• Trust the Marketing firm you’ve hired. If you can’t get someone you can!
• The cost of lessons learnt from mistakes is often less than the cost of indecision.
• Barriers restrict engagement.

Note: these are a minority, the majority of start ups get it.