There’s a big irony in the how-to Internet marketing niche. You see, while so much attention is given to tactics for generating traffic, list-building and increasing conversions, very little is given to the MOST important ingredient for getting more traffic, boosting conversions and making more profits LONG TERM.

Now, if I was to speculate, I might say that the reason why so many how-to Internet marketing products focus on these – often short-term – tactics is because the people selling them don’t really understand what this ingredient is.

Frankly, a lot of these guys are fly-by-the-nighters. Sure, they may be able to make some quick cash by selling a system based on some short-term tactic… but they don’t have REAL businesses to show for their efforts. Which obviously means they either don’t know – or are ignoring – this ingredient.

So, I guess, if they don’t know about this missing ingredient, we can hardly expect them to teach it.

Yet, if YOU are aiming to build a sustainable online business for the long-term then this missing ingredient is absolutely critical.

In fact, this missing ingredient will drive traffic, build your email list, increase conversions, and grow sales and profits to such an extent that it leaves all those short-term traffic systems in the dust.

That’s NOT to say you shouldn’t ever try some of the various traffic systems to give your business an initial or extra boost. But it’s the missing ingredient, not traffic systems, that will ultimately power your business.

So what is this missing ingredient that’s so critical?

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It’s… your PRODUCT or SERVICE!

That’s right, it’s having a wonderful product or service – one that delivers real value to your customers – that will ultimately drive your business.

Why will it drive traffic, conversions and profits long-term?

Because when you have a great product or service that delivers real value, two things will happen that will truly fuel the growth and profitability of your business:

1. Customers will come back for more, more often – whether they buy more of the same product or something else you offer; and

2. Customers will tell their friends about it, which in turn will get you more satisfied customers buying more from you, more often.

Make no mistake, the most powerful marketing in the world is genuine, word-of-mouth marketing. No amount of advertising, let alone crazy traffic or list building tactics, matches the awesome power of ordinary people recommending your product to their friends and colleagues.

I have absolutely no doubt that great products and services lie behind the success of all great companies, whether you’re talking about Apple, Google or Facebook in the technology world, or Dove soap, Starbucks coffee, or Nike running shoes in the offline world.

Sure, big brands pour a lot of money into advertising – to get attention, create awareness and desire, and entice people to buy – but advertising alone could never power the ongoing success of any product or service. In fact, it’s been said that nothing kills a business faster than great advertising for a poor product.

Of course, you may have the best product in the world, but you still need to tell people about it and convince them to try or buy it. That’s why we DO put so much of our attention on ways to generate traffic, build email lists, increase conversions, and so on.

But I really think the people teaching Internet marketing give far too little attention to the importance of creating GREAT products. In fact, the opposite is true: I don’t know how many times I’ve come across product creation courses where you’re told to slap together me-too ebooks, software and the like, as if the quality and value of what you’re creating doesn’t matter.

Well, the days of being able to slap together lame ebooks that just recycle what people can already find elsewhere for free are OVER.

The reality is that, yes, you can use various methods to generate traffic, build your list, increase conversions, and so on, but if your product or service doesn’t deliver real value… you just won’t hold on to customers. If anything, you’ll DISAPPOINT customers who end up spreading BAD word of mouth about you to their friends.

The upshot of this is that you’ll find yourself forever in a vicious cycle of continually having to come with heavy-handed, hard-sell tactics to get people buying from you… then losing customers… then having to use the hard-sell tactics for another bunch of people… only to find yourself doing this over and over again.

Sadly, I already see people within the Internet marketing niche in this very predicament. And the irony is, for all the hard work it takes to create great products and services, it’s much harder and more stressful to have to continually come up with crazy schemes and hard-sell tactics to sucker people in to buy crappy products.

Please don’t fall into this trap. Create great products that your customers will love. Then use all the marketing tools at your disposal to get them to your site, signing up to your list, buying from you… then coming back for more and telling their friends about you.

Create a VIRTUOUS marketing cycle, not a vicious one, and start by creating a GREAT product or service.

Related Articles:

• Internet Marketing: The No. 1 Factor That Affects How Much Money You Make Online That NO-ONE Talks About (Not Even The Gurus…)
• How To Avoid ‘Guru Overload’
• I’ve Followed The Steps… Now, Where’s The Money?
• How To Deal With Failure
• How To Get Breakthrough Ideas From Other Businesses and Organizations

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 at 2:14 pm and is filed under News and Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.