Online Marketing is not just Making Money Online

One of my favorite hobbies is watching videos on YouTube. I used to watch philosophical debates, educational videos, funny videos, and anything under the sun. It’s very convenient than reading books and texts since I can just watch videos though my tiny mobile phone without tiring my already unhealthy eyes. I can even just listen to videos with my earphones until I fall asleep at night instead of watching them.

I’d been also watching updates on Internet marketing and SEO. Internet marketing companies and experts usually upload videos on their channels to deliver updates to their subscribers and also, of course, to do video marketing. If you’re an aspiring online marketer, you must do video marketing. Google and Facebook maybe are the no. 1 and no. 2 websites in the world, but you should also realize that YouTube is the no. 3 website on the planet.

There are many online marketing experts who are sharing their insights through their videos on YouTube. But then there is a reality that I discovered there. It’s about online marketing in the Philippines.

I have already watched a lot of videos from business and marketing experts coming from countries like the US, UK and other parts of the world. They are very professional, and they talk for answers and solutions rather than mega announcing their own products.

So I decided to watch online marketing videos from the Philippines – “why not learn from Filipino Internet marketers?”, I asked myself. I was excited to watch and learn from my countrymen whom I think are online marketing experts. But my expectation was replaced by some disappointment. YouTube brought me to a video of a man flashing his dollar earnings to his audience. The title of the video is online marketing in the Philippines.

That made me asked myself the question – is that what online marketing means in the Philippines?

I’m not degrading the whole community of Filipino Internet marketers. I’d known a number of high-caliber online marketers in the Philippines, and they even don’t claim on their websites or blogs that they are experts – they let their satisfied clients or partners claim it for them. I just want to pinpoint a reality that is happening in the Philippine online marketing industry and wish to encourage improvement.

Most Filipinos think that online marketing is synonymous with making money online. If they see someone earning dollars through the Internet, they usually think that he or she is already an Internet marketer. Likewise, there are people who self-proclaim that they are already Internet marketers because they can show proof of income from advertising or from affiliate commissions.

Making money online or making profits through the Internet is part of online marketing. However, it’s not what online marketing is all about. Making money online maybe hard, but the real online marketing is even harder.

There are many Filipinos who want to earn dollars and achieve financial freedom, and they see Internet marketing as one of the most convenient solutions. Well, I cannot blame them – they are perhaps lured by many self-proclaimed Internet marketing experts, who promised them instant profit, passive income, time flexibility, convenience of working at home, and the comfort of being your own boss. These things may be true… these things are maybe true in the online money making world, but not always in the online marketing world.

We, Filipinos, should realize that online marketing is more about professionalism rather than flexibility and being your own boss, hard work and patience rather than convenience of working at home, and providing long-term value rather than making instant profit.

Filipinos should stop fantasizing about comfort, convenience, or counting dollars because if these are the only things that motivate them, they might only find themselves along with other millions of people who fail in their journey to finding financial freedom through online marketing. They may earn instant profit, but they would also fail instantly. The fact is that most instant online money makers don’t last long in the online world where competition is very tough, not to mention that rules are also constantly changing.

The real success in online marketing is not achieved overnight. Thus, we have to start thinking for the long term, and when we speak about long term, we need to think about patience, diligence, persistence, consistency, and commitment. To achieve your financial freedom and to escape from financial troubles, you have to avoid falling into another trap, that is, the promises of false online marketing.

Online marketing is very different from making money online. If you will ask the real experts what online marketing is, you will get a very different perspective. Online marketing has never become all about making money online. Even in the traditional or offline marketing, marketing is not all about making money.

The only difference between marketing and online marketing is just the word “online”. Internet marketing or online marketing is a marketing done on the Internet or online. In other words, nothing has changed in the fundamentals of marketing except the tool or medium used – the Internet. The elements of marketing (i.e. product, price, place, and promotion) are still there – they aren’t reduced but instead increased by the power of the Internet.

If you’re an Internet marketer, you’re a marketer who’s using the Internet as a tool. It’s not the Internet that gives you money or profit, but it’s actually the activity you’re doing, that is, marketing. Thus, if you want to do Internet marketing, you don’t just embrace Internet, but you have to embrace the whole marketing concept.

There are online marketers who will tell you that online marketing is equal to traffic + conversion, but it’s not just that. Online marketing should be equal to traffic + conversion + consistency. And when we speak about consistency or stability, we speak about quality, trust, confidence, and long term relationship with customers.

We can get traffic and convert them to profit, but the question is… how long can we keep that traffic and that profit conversion? We can implement search engine marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing, and other different online marketing techniques to attract people, convert them to customers, and generate sales, but the question again is… how long can we keep those customers and sales?

It’s not difficult to drive attention and traffic to your website or business page. You can do that through spamming, press release, and other types of megaphone marketing that seeks the attention of people even if it means disturbing them. But that’s not what Internet marketing is all about. Online marketing is more about magnet marketing or the creation of long-term value and relationship that keep generating traffic and make your profit conversion consistent.

SEO is a type of online marketing, but you can only be a real SEO if you can optimize a website for the search engines in the consistent manner. Affiliate marketing is a type of Internet marketing, but you can only be a real affiliate marketer if you sell or promote affiliate products that have quality you have actually experienced and attested. If you do SEO, affiliate marketing, social media marketing, or any other types of online marketing without really providing value or without having consistent quality, you cannot be a real online marketer – but only online money maker.

I hope that Filipinos will have a different perspective of what online marketing is all about. I want to see my countrymen creating long-term wealth that will truly help them achieve financial freedom rather than instant profit that only fades instantly. I want to see Filipinos implementing long-term business models that provide long-term value to consumers. I want to see them creating and marketing high-quality products and services that will give honor to our country.

Online marketing, when done right, can’t only generate thousands or even millions of pesos of profits to any Filipino, but it can give a sustainable business that will generate those amounts of profit in a consistent manner. I wish that Filipinos would become world-class online marketers who would contribute to the growth of the local online marketing industry, as well as to the Philippine economy.

My words may be harsh, but that is the reality. I may be wishing for something that is difficult to achieve, but every reality starts with a wish.