Internet marketing gets accused of a lot of things.

Often correctly – not every motive is pure and a lot of products that are sold are the modern day equivalent of snake oil.

But that statement alone should tell you that this isn’t a new phenomenon.

Snake oil (or similar) has been promoted as a miracle cure for all sorts of things for several hundred years.

And – thanks to the placebo effect – it’s probably worked more often than the salesmen ever hoped it would.

But that’s been overtaken by internet marketing – you can reach more people more quickly and a lot cheaper than trekking around the country in a horse and cart.

Before you get any ideas, I’m not suggesting that the sectors I talk about are infested with snake oil salesmen. They’re simply sectors I promote selected products in.

I’ve been promoting self help and personal development products for some time – mainly because it’s an area I have a personal interest in and also because it can change people’s lives for the better.

An email I had recently suggested that as internet marketers moved into different sectors, there was a danger that the “good stuff” would get overlooked and pushed out of the way in favour of things that were more commercialised.

Well, yes and no.

Personally I’m a firm believer in market forces. Which means I think that the less-good stuff will get found out in the end and will either be taken off the market or forced to revamp itself.

The number of review sites and places like Facebook and Twitter where people expect (and often get) an almost instant response is, I think, accelerating that trend.

But the comment got me thinking…

One of the markets I promote in self help is meditation.

This can be done traditionally with no equipment and with little, if any, training. Although, like most things, you’ll get better results if you at least do a little bit of research.

Traditional meditation can be learned face to face or from books and online tutorials.

It’s good. It helps you relax and become more “at one” with the world.

But the idea of taking months (or more likely years) to learn means that a lot of people are put off the idea and don’t start.

The commercialisation of this has taken many directions:

• Guided meditations where you simply listen and follow the instructions
• Online courses – books, audios, videos
• Higher tech solutions where you don’t even have to follow any instructions. Some weird, scientific, things called binaural beats do all the hard work of getting your brain to the level it would be at if you’d practised for years.

That’s the solution I use and promote.

Because – along with most people – I haven’t got enough hours in the day to follow a more traditional route.

And because it works.

I’ve been using it since 2007 and had positive results.

It’s been commercialised since before that time and the price has gradually dropped from the thousands of dollars charged by Cebterpointe to the product that the best seller of the ones I promote that is $37 with the coupon the site offers everyone who visits.

Commercialised?

Yes.

A good value product?

Yes.

So, in my mind, that’s win-win.

Internet marketing has brought a useful system to a wider audience.

What about a different market?

Another market that I buy in but don’t really sell in is diet and weight loss.

Every year there’s a new diet which is the “must have” solution.

Over the years, it’s varied: high fibre, high carb, low carb, low GI, specific main ingredients such as cabbage or citrus fruits.

Then there are the perennial options such as Weight Watchers.

Do the diets work?

Usually.

But only if you follow them fairly strictly.

And I know from personal experience that it’s easy to follow a diet and then put at least as many pounds back on when you stop.

Although I’ve found the occasional book that I’d recommend I’ve not really found any products from the various affiliate sites that I’d be comfortable selling.

But that’s probably just me – there’s nothing inherently worse in Clickbank than there is on the shelves of your local book store or their equivalent on Amazon.

There’s another argument in favour of internet marketing

Quite often we need to be “sold” things.

That’s how changes happen.

Is an iPhone more commercialised than the old dial up phone with a wire going into the wall?

Yes, but it does so much more than the old style phone could ever have hoped to do.

The money from commercialising things allows for that development.

Otherwise we’d still be driving round in a Model-T Ford and filling up the tank from a 2 gallon can rather than a pump.

Or, further back, that horse and cart again.

There’s an extra advantage with internet marketing

The snake oil salesman would have left town long before you decided the miracle cure didn’t work.

Most products sold by internet marketers come with guarantees – anything from a few weeks up to a year or more.

So you’ve got a lot more protection than you ever had if something is less-than ideal.

And there’s nothing inherent in the more commercial solutions that stops you going down a different route.

We’ve got so much more information – arguably too much – at our fingertips that you can choose almost any route you want.

I think there’s more than enough room for both approaches – let me know your thoughts in the comment box below this article.