It occurred to me that Al Gore is a fantastic example for people who want to make money through Internet marketing. Here’s my hypothesis, let me know what you think:
He’s become the master speaker on global warming. The go-to guy for that market. Like a niche blogger, he attracts crowds every time he opens his mouth about his specialist topic. His job is to jet-set around the globe, light a hot fire under people’s butts, and get the word out about the inconvenient truth of global warming.
So what, he’s an effective public speaker, a former vice-president of his country, and he wants to make a difference in the world. What’s that got to do with Internet Marketing? Or even internet marketing, for that matter.
Well, here’s my idea:
Credibility. Al Gore has credibility. Whether you’re a pot-smoking Democrat, a baby-eating Republican, or simply not an American, people all over the globe take Al Gore seriously. Sure, not everybody does. Not everybody takes Ed Dale seriously. And not everybody takes the Chaser boys seriously. But, like a good niche blogger, Al Gore does have credibility: that means that when he opens his mouth and talks about global warming, people listen. If Al Gore had a blog about global warming, people would subscribe to it. (I think he does, but I couldn’t find it.)
Frequent communication, without explicit selling. How many check moves do you personally get every week from Al Gore. Well, if you’re me, he rings up every second night crying for me to come back to him. But even you probably still get all kinds of communications from him. You watched his movie. You saw him in the newspaper. If you’re in the US of A, you listened to his campaigns and decided not to vote for him. But in any case, you still hear Al Gore’s message all the time. But does he say things like “buy my book”, “I sell carbon credits”, or “HOW I HALVED MY CARBON FOOTPRINT IN TEN DAYS”?
Products. Did you even notice, or did he sneak it past you too? Al Gore, and his companies, sell seminars, movies, carbon offsets, consulting services, and who knows what else. He has commercial relationships with hybrid car manufacturers. Every time Al Gore promotes his climate change cause, he also promotes these products. It’s a big conversation with the world, and every time he communicates, it gives the world a chance to buy his products.
Profits from not only the products, but also the communications themselves. This point is where Al Gore is like a blogger with Adsense on their blog. See, Al Gore’s speaking tours are great for the cause, and great for promoting his products. But they also provide for him financially. He makes money in the process of encouraging people up to make money off them… even if the people at the seminars and cinemas don’t end up buying carbon credits or hybrid cars… a true money machine.
Oh yeah, and YouTube. Everybody loves YouTube, even if the YouTube data centres are just big blocks of carbon-burping electricity-guzzling non-recyclable something-something I need beer! My rants are lame, but this video is funny.
Well, wouldn’t anyone agree that Al Gore is the ultimate (hybrid-fuel) Internet-marketing idol?
