Trust is a precious thing. It’s something which customers regard very highly however it is a delicate thing and can be lost at any time. How many times have you seen large companies losing millions because if being exposed for doing something less than honest? Trust can make or break a business.
Trust is very important to the success of bloggers too. I’ve spent years building up a reputation as someone who is trustworthy and doesn’t try and rip anyone off. A reputation like this is very valuable however it can also be lost very quickly. I was reminded of this a few days ago when an email was sent to my newsletter subscribers.
The email referred to a book I purchased entitled The Internet Marketing Revolution. The book explains why the real money online is in product creation rather than promoting other people’s products. I found the book really useful however the end of the book will leave a bitter taste in your mouth. The author spends the first two thirds of the book explaining why you should work for yourself and be a seller, not a promoter. He then undoes all the good advice he gave in the last third the book by completely contradicting everything he previously wrote and heavily promoting his own services. It comes across as if the book was written by two authors or someone with a split personality disorder as the tone changes from someone who is giving good advice to someone who advises you that creating your own product is too much work and you should promote his products instead.
I don’t mind authors promoting their website a little, however I don’t want to feel like I’m being offered a time share in a product I paid for. Unfortunately, many internet marketing books are like this. I’ve become so accustomed to it that I simply ignore these pages and move on.
I only email about products I use personally now or have done so in the past. One of the things I failed to do well with my last two successful blogs is monetize them effectively using products so a lot of the advice given in the book really hit home for me.
I was perhaps wrong to promote it to all readers. At the very least, I should have explained more about what the book was about.
I want to get one thing straight with all of you. I’m not going to promote products that I don’t believe in myself. Your trust is something I value highly and it’s not something I want to lose. I enjoyed that particular book and I thought it was great value at $9.95.
Please bear in mind however that many Internet marketers promote their products aggressively. You may find that someone who sells you a good product may then start emailing you frequently about something you aren’t interested in. Remember, you have the power to stop receiving email from all marketers. You simply need to click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.
I encourage you all to contact me regarding anything I email or anything I write about on this blog. I am grateful to those of you who emailed me your views about the book I recommended the other day. At the end of the day, if a few of you are complaining about something I am emailing about, then I’m probably doing something wrong, therefore I want to know about it.
Please let me know what your opinion is on this subject. Specifically, do you mind me promoting internet marketing books from time to time if the product has valuable tips? Would you prefer if I didn’t recommend products via email and solely recommended them via my products page?
:)
Kevin