Marketing Tactics That Work Today But Not Tomorrow
If a marketing tactic works today, but may not work a year or two from now, should you still use it?
If you find a loophole in Google’s ranking algorithm, should you exploit it — even though the loophole may be closed within a week or a month or a year?
Sometimes the slight advantage happens in the margins… in the places your competitors aren’t. Sometimes that may mean availing yourself of a slight advantage for a temporary period of time.
Just keep in mind that you can’t build a business on short-term marketing tactics. A business must be built on a foundation of proven marketing strategies and tactics that will last for the long haul.
Here’s another question:
Once you’ve discovered a short-term marketing tactic, ranking loophole, or whatever, should you package it up as a new super-secret method for making money and then sell it?
No, I don’t think so.
First of all, selling the method will probably instantly erase any slight competitive advantage you had gained.
Second of all, loopholes that get over-used get shut down faster.
Third of all, it’s unethical to sell information that could “go bad” in a week or two. It’s like selling overripe fruit — even if you give it away, it’s just not worth much, if anything at all.
Next time you discover a little-known and little-used tactic for gaining a short-term competitive advantage, keep it to yourself.
It’ll be better for you (because you’ll be able to enjoy your slight advantage for a longer period of time)… and it will be better for the people who might have paid to discover the method (because they won’t have wasted their money on information about to expire).
-Ryan M. Healy
