How to Succeed in Internet Marketing: Perception and Assumptions

I was in the shower and it hit me! One of those eureka moments when everything becomes crystal clear, at least until you get out of the bathroom and it leaves your brain forever. You know what I mean, kind of like what a dream does, you struggle to remember, but it’s gone forever. First of all, I guess I should explain what the heck I am talking about! You see, I seem to get some of my best ideas in the shower. I did some research with a physiologist during my stint in academia and he said it had to do with the fact that as we put our head under the nozzle and allow the water to pulsate and massage our head, the brain is being stimulated by the repetitive pulses of the shower massage. The stimulation leads to increased brain activity, the result being creative thoughts and ideas. I was impressed and thought about it for a minute or two.

After a couple of minutes back on the task we were working on, surveying 3100 skeletons in the Hamann-Todd Collection at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, a question came to mind. Interestingly, my question then is just what you are thinking right now if you are with me on this. What about before shower massages? What happened then? He laughed and told me not to be so old-fashioned. Me? Old fashioned? Well, we both laughed and then he continued. My research partner noted that the topic had been researched thoroughly, the evidence conclusive. Who was I to argue with him, it sounded reasonable to me. He went on to talk about impulses and axons and dendrites and after about 5 minutes I knew two things: one, I was glad I was a bone guy and not a physiologist; and two, I knew he knew a whole lot more about it than I did!

Anyway, back to my revelation. I was actually thinking about a Clickbank marketing campaign I started a couple of days back, considering the target market and how to reach them. It was then that it hit me like a ton of bricks, my eureka moment! I know, but I really do a lot of my best thinking in the shower and lately all I can think about is marketing, it’s a sickness! So, all at once, the two came together in a moment of total clarity. It’s about perceptions and assumptions!

That’s right that was the moment, the revelation, and the epiphany! The thought was so intense and so amazingly clear, I got out and wrote it down else it disappear much as the dreams mentioned above vanish in a moment. Let me explain. As marketers we see the world a certain way, we make certain assumptions based on our perceptions, our observations and, if we are really good at what we do, our testing. We study, quantify, test, optimize, study, and then test again. Once we assume that we have everything pretty well knocked, a clear understanding of whatever it is we are attempting to monetize, we launch our product, service, campaign or whatever. Interestingly, we cannot test the one variable that makes everything that preceded the launch so much window dressing, the testing just this side of pseudo-science. We cannot test how people will react given their individual perceptions and assumptions.

Interestingly, the perception or perceptions, and the assumption or assumptions based on those perceptions, is precisely where the challenge rests. We base our marketing, in fact every decision we make in our lives, on the schema we bring with us through life, our own life-mind-map, if you will. The conundrum, the puzzle, the real and difficult challenge is to shed our pre-conceived notions, our perceptions and assumptions, in order to make an educated guess about what a prospective customer will do or won’t do based on their perceptions and assumptions.

So what does this mean for Internet marketers, in fact for all marketers? Well, let’s take the Clickbank example for a moment. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Internet marketers, regardless of the niche, advice people to stay away from Clickbank. The Reasoning? I’ve been told, and heard others complain, that you will market your product and when people find out it’s a Clickbank product, they will go and sign up for their own account, if they don’t have one already, and take the sale and the commission for themselves. You do the marketing, someone else gets the sale! All I can say to that is that the person making that assumption, based on a certain perception, is not thinking like a prospective customer, they are thinking like an Internet marketer. Perceptions and assumptions!

Significantly, most people do not view the world as we do; and, they don’t have any desire to. The fact is most people have no idea who or what Clickbank is until they see a form with it written across the top as they are making the decision to purchase an item. Think about your first experiences online. Did you have any idea what you were doing, much less what Clickbank or Clickbooth or Commission Junction does or is? Much less know how they work? The average consumer types in a few words, ones they think might get them a bit closer to solving a problem or answering a question, and they wait for a page to crystallize in front of their eyes. They don’t know anything about sponsored links or PPC or SEO or anything else, all they know is there’s a page with some possible answers and those answers may help them solve their problem. That’s it! However, we as Internet marketers assign to our prospective clients and customers all of our own, very personal, skewed, slanted, and even biased perceptions and assumptions. Significantly, most customers just want the quickest, easiest fix for their particular issue, question or problem; and, hopefully at the lowest price possible.

So that was it, the eureka moment, the moment of clarity, the ah-ha moment. I knew then, at that precise moment, that there was nothing to worry about because I am not marketing to Internet marketers, at least not for the campaigns I am currently invested in. I am marketing to John Doe or Jane Smith and all they want is for the pain to go away or their dog to behave or to lose 15 pounds or for their little Janie or Johnny to make the soccer team or any one of a hundred or a thousand different things to happen or get fixed or have answered that have absolutely nothing to do with Internet marketing or Clickbank…they just want their problem fixed!

That was it, that was the moment and it was an amazing one for me personally. You see, I’ve become so immersed in the culture of marketing, and particularly Internet marketing, I forgot what it is like to sit in front of a monitor, not having a clue how to turn the darn thing on, much less try to get the answer I needed. Going back to that mindset was an amazing moment, because it helped me to reshape my thinking and to understand once again what it is like to be on the other side of the transaction; and, on the other side of the learning curve. Our perceptions, based on certain assumptions, must be shed if we are to be effective marketers. It is about more than empathy, it is about being able to step outside yourself and view a situation from both perspectives, without making any assumptions! It is something like what we call an emic and etic perspective in anthropology, the ability to view a situation from different perspectives in order to achieve a clearer understanding of the individual, the society in which he or she resides, and the culture they are a part of, and how that all comes together to shape an individual’s schema or life-mind-map. If you can read that map, you are going to be successful beyond belief. If you are a lousy navigator, I suggest you learn how to read a map. Or? Take up glass blowing, it may be more profitable!

Professor John P. J. Zajaros, Sr.
216-539-7412
Skype: johnzajaros1
johnz@thequestrevealed.com
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