The Single Key That Leads To Internet Marketing Success Or Failure

There is a single factor, unrecognized by many, that can mean the difference between success and failure in Internet marketing. Even if everything is done right, this factor can singlehandedly destroy any business. Conversely, even if everything else is lacking, this factor can still cause a business to succeed.

Surprisingly, as important as this factor may be, it is so basic that most businesses simply fail take it into consideration at all. The failure to consider this when presenting a business to the world could be said to be the very base upon which all success rests. What is this all important component of a successful Internet marketing strategy?

Trust.

People will only buy from a business if they really trust that business.

If people do not trust you, they will never buy anything, regardless of the price asked or the quality of the product. If they do really trust you, they will do business with you even if everything else is not up to par.

Trust is formed as the result of many seemingly unconnected factors. Building trust is an intuitive and perhaps a subconscious process. We often cannot verbalize why we trust a particular business or individual. We cannot say why we do - we only somehow know that we do, or we do not. We know it the minute we walk through the door. On the Internet, we know it the second the web site flashes on to the screen. We never actually decide to trust or not to trust. We instead feel trust.

As buyers we can begin to experience trust as the result of a handshake, in the eye contact – in hundreds of ways. We sense feelings of mistrust in the same way. However, as business owners in an Internet marketing environment, we are not given the opportunity to develop that trust through a firm handshake or a steady gaze. We must instead build trust through words, images, initial impressions and site design.

Intuitive processes are quite hard to define. While our fathers may have trusted banks and presidents, many of us today do not. Is this due to a greater awareness, better communication or media influence? Or is it the result of something else now present that was not present in years past?

The subject of building trust could span an entire book, or perhaps many books. It cannot be given a full treatment in a single article and so I shall attempt to cover the subject over a number of concurrent articles.

That being said, here is one easy takeaway idea. Understand that there are basically two broad categories of businesses. There are takers and there are givers.

Takers take. They take your money. They take your name. They take your email address.

Givers give. They give free advice. Free articles. Free gifts.

If a business is a ‘taker’, people will most likely not trust that business.

If a business is a ‘giver’, people will often trust that business, even if everything else is messed up completely.

If a business is a ‘giver’ but has strings attached to the gift, people will know that business is just a taker trying to appear to be a giver. Don't do this. This old-school tactic is number one on the list of things that can immediately destroy trust.

In the next article I will continue with the subject of trust and how to begin to build it.

Posted by Don at Free Publicity Focus Group