It is often said there are no new ideas in Internet marketing. That may or may not be true, but as far as I am concerned, it doesn’t matter.
I frequently refer to my tattered copy of “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing,” and one of my favorite passages is The Law of the Mind, where authors Al Ries and Jack Trout explain that it’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.
The example used in this, the third of the 22 laws, is the MITS Altair 8800 – the world’s first personal computer.
After the MITS Altair 8800, there were four other personal computers that came out shortly after: Apple II, Commodore Pet, IMSAI 8080, and Radio Shack TRS-80.
Apple stood out and still remains a powerhouse. MITS isn’t part of the conversation anymore.
As far as a more current example, there is the 1000-Word Page. The concept was that people could “adopt” one of 1,000 common words they featured on the site and point it to a URL. Early on, there was positive buzz and we all know what that leads to… competition.
Shortly after the 1000-Word Page launched, Internet marketing whiz Joel Comm rolled out a competitor called 500 Words.
Joel used his marketing acumen to launch an improved product with more effective marketing. Shortly after, Joel had sold out each of his 500 words. As I type this, the 100-Word page still has more than 95% of their inventory available.
And Joel took it a step further by selling a version of his 500 Words software for other Internet marketers to purchase, so they can try their hand at replicating the concept and making some cash from it.
The software for creating these sorts of sites is called the Link Sizzler.